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Alleged Discrepancies 
of the Bible. 



BY 

REV. WILLIAM H. BATES, D. D. 



BOSTON 

WATCHWORD AND TRUTH 
I902 



BSs-.i 



Foreword. 

During, and since, the publication of " Notes From A Pastor's 
Study," on "Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible," in the Watch- 
word and Truth, the expressions of satisfaction derived from 
them have been multitudinous ; and now the numerous requests, 
from widespread sources, for their republication in book form, 
seem to leave no alternative but to comply. 

The opportunity has been improved to revise the articles, or 
chapters, and to make some additions which, it is believed, will 
add to their value. 

The book is sent out with the hope, and with the prayer, that 
it may serve, in some measure, to confute unbelief, and to confirm 
faith in God's Infallible Word. 

St. Louis, Mo. W. H. B. 



THF LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
T>*o Copies Receives 

PFC. 22 ?§f)2 

CoevmoHT EHTWr 

Q-*A C\~\q 0*2— 
CLASS o^XXa No. 

U~ 14- *4- 5*3 
COPY B. 



Copyright by W. H. Bates, 1902. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

The young people go to the Dominie's. David's purchase of 
Araunah's, or Oman's, threshing-floor, 2 Sam. 24 : 24 — 1 Chron. 
21 : 25. Pp. 1-5. 

CHAPTER II. 

The purchased threshing-floor again. Matthew's quotation 
from Jeremiah (?) concerning the potter's field, Matt. 27 : 9, 10. 
The calling of " my v Son " out of Egypt, Matt. 2 : 15— Hos. n : 1. 

Pp. 6-12. 

CHAPTER III. 

" The Eleven," when only ten Apostles were present, Mk. 
16 : 14. The number that " fell in one day," or " in the plague," 
1 Cor. 10 : 8— Numb. 15 : 9. God tempting Abraham, yet He can- 
not tempt any man, Gen. 22 : 1 — Jas. 1 : 13. Pp. 13-17. 



CHAPTER IV. 

The number of Jacob's family (66, 70, or 75) in Egypt, Gen. 
46 : 26, 27 — Acts 7 : 14. The variant numbers of the military in 
Israel and Judah, 1 Chron. 21 :5 — 2 Sam. 24 : 9. Pp. 18-22. 



CHAPTER V. 

The challenge by "a maid," by "another maid," and by 
" another man," to Peter, Mk. 14 : 69 — Matt. 26 : 71 — L,k. 22 : 58. 
Bearing " one another's burden," yet every man bearing " his 
own burden," Gal. 6 : 2 — Gal. 6 : 5. God ceasing to work on the 
seventh day, yet continuing to work, Gen. 2 : 2 — Jno. 5 : 17. 

Pp. 23-26. 



ii Contents. 

CHAPTER VI. 

The blind man, or men, healed at Jericho, Matt. 20 : 29 — Mk. 
10:46 — Lk. 18: 35. Saul killed by himself, by the Philistines, 
and by the Amalekite, 1 Sam. 31 : 4, 5 — 2 Sam. 21 : 12 — 2 Sam. 
1 : 10. Pp. 27-32. 

CHAPTER VII. 

God dwelling, yet not dwelling, in a structure made by hands, 
Ex. 25 : 8 — Acts 7 : 48. The childlessness of Michal, David's 
wife, 2 Sam. 6 : 23 — 2 Sam. 21 : 8. Saul knew, yet did not know, 
David, 1 Sam. 16 and 17. God cannot repent, yet He repented, 
1 Sam. 15 : 29—1 Sam. 15 : 35. Pp. 33-38. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Beasts entering the Ark by twos, or by sevens, Gen. 6 : 19 — 
Gen. 7 : 2. Quails about the camp of the Israelites, Numb. 11 : 31. 
A voice "heard," yet not heard, on the way to Damascus with 
Paul, Acts 9 : 7 — Acts 22 : 9. Pp. 39-44. 

CHAPTER IX. 

God unseeable, yet seen, Gen. 32 : 30 — Ex. 33 : 20. The making 
of graven images forbidden, yet commanded, Ex. 20 : 4 — Ex. 
25 : 18, 20. Justification by works, yet justified by faith only, 
Gal. 2 : 16 — Jas. 2 : 24. Lawful, yet not lawful, to put Jesus to 
death, Jno. 19 : 7— Jno. 18 : 31. Pp. 45~5i- 

CHAPTER X. 

Joshua's conquest " at one time," yet it took a long time, Josh. 
10 : 42 — Josh. 11 : 18. The high places taken away, yet not taken 
away, 2 Chron. 14 : 2-5 — 1 Kings 15 : 14. The disciples com- 
manded, yet forbidden, to take walking-sticks and foot-wear, 
Matt. 10 : 9, 10— Mk. 6 : 8, 9— Lk. 9 : 3. Pp. 52-56. 

CHAPTER XI. 

Christ equal, yet not equal, with God, Phil. 2 : 6 — Jno. 14 : 28. 
Creation very good, yet not so, Gen. 1 : 31 — Rom. 8 : 22. Christ's 



V 



^ 



Contents. iii 



mission to earth one of peace, yet not one of peace, Lk. 2 : 14 — 
Matt. 10 : 34. No man to be called father, yet man may be called 
father, Matt. 23 : 9 — Lk. 15 : 18. God, if sought early, shall be 
found, yet He shall not be found, Prov. 8 : 17 — Prov. 1 : 28. Love 
commanded, yet hatred enjoined, Eph. 5 : 25, 28, 29 — Lk. 14 : 26. 

Pp. 57-61. 

CHAPTER XII. 

Light before the sun, Gen. 1 : 35 — Gen. 1 : 14-19. The hardening 
of Pharaoh's heart, Ex. 4 : 21, etc. The hare chewing (?) the 
cud, Lev. 11 : 6. Pp. 62-70. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Israel's sojourn in Egyyt, Gen. 15 : 13 — Ex. 12 : 40— Gal. 3 : 17. 
The purchase of ground for a sepulchre by Abraham, or Jacob? 
Acts 7 : 16 — Josh. 24 : 32. The hour of Christ's crucifixion, Jno. 
19 : 14— Mk. 15 : 25. Christ's "Touch me not" to Mary Magda- 
lene, yet touched, Jno. 20 : 17 — Matt. 28 : 9. Pp. 71-82. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Jesus' witness of himself not true, yet true, Jno. 5 : 31 — Jno. 8 : 14. 
The Lord the author (?) of evil, Isa. 45 : 7 — Ps. 5 : 4. Judas' 
betrayal of Jesus, or God's sovereignty and man's free agency. 
The security of the believer, yet may be a castaway ? Jno. 6 : 40 — 
1 Cor. 9 : 27. Pp. 83-94. 

CHAPTER XV. 

The superscriptions upon the cross, Matt. 27 : 37 — Mk. 15 : 26 — 
Lk. 23 : 38— Jno. 19 : 19. St. Paul's deliverance in regard to mar- 
riage, 1 Cor. 7 : 10 — 1 Cor. 7 : 12. Did the Holy Spirit bid and 
forbid St. Paul to go to Jerusalem? Acts 20 : 22 — Acts 21 : 4. The 
numbers in the Levitical families of Gershon, Kohath, and 
Merari, Numb. 3 : 22, 28, 34, 39. David the eighth, and yet the 
seventh, son of Jesse,i Sam. 16 : 10,11 — 1 Chron. 2 : 15. Pp. 95-102. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

The differences in quotations from the Old Testament in the 
New, Isa. 29 : 14— 1 Cor. 1 : 19 ; Isa. 64 : 4—1 Cor. 2:9; Ps. 40 : 6— 
Heb. 10 : 5 ; Ps. 68 : 18— Eph. 4 : 8. Pp. 103-108. 



iv Contents. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Jehoiachin eighteen, yet eight, years old when he began to 
reign, i Kings 24 : 8 — 2 Chron. 36 : 9. Ahaziah twenty-two, yet 
forty-two, years old when he began to reign, 2 Kings 8 : 26 — 2 
Chron. 22 : 2. The general subject of variations in Scripture 
numbers. The effect of these variations on the question of the 
Inspiration of the Bible. The meetings of the young people in 
the Pastor's Study come to an end. Pp. 109-117. 



ALLEGED DISCREPANCIES 
* # OF THE BIBLE. ^ ** 



CHAPTER I. 

" Hello!" 

" Good evening to you !" 

Such was the breezy salutation of two young men as 
they suddenly encountered each other at a right-angled 
street corner. 

"Whither?" said one. "To the Dominie's," was the 
reply. "Ditto," said the first. Locking arms they 
cordially walked on together. 

The first speaker, Fred Leges, was a young lawyer, 
active, shrewd, sharp, inquisitive. His mind was con- 
structed on the principle of interrogation points. He 
wanted to see over, under, through, around, every sub- 
ject he studied. The other, George Argent, was a quiet, 
candid, thoughtful, studious bank teller, and if less 
demonstrative than his companion, he nevertheless quite 
as surely accomplished his purpose. Both had had a 
thorough, vitalizing Christian experience, making them 
11 Oand O," i. e. out and out, Christians. Accordingly, 
they were both earnest workers in Christian Endeavor, 
Sunday School and Church ; and not only so, but in 
private, personal ways they sought to serve their deeply 
loved Master. 

One result of their pronounced, every-day Christian 
character, was to bring them now and then, such were 
their surroundings, into contact, not to say collision, 
with skeptics and infidels, fair, false, and virulent. Dif- 



2 Alleged Discrepancies 

Acuities and questions were sometimes thrust upon them 
that they did not know how to answer. But they pro- 
posed to learn how. 

" The Dominie," their pastor, was a mature man, in 
many senses, who, happily, had never forgotten that 
he was once young ; and so he was in close sympathy 
with his young people as well as with the older ones. 
11 Did you ever read that chapter in Kingsley's Hypatia, 
'The Bottom of the Abyss?' " said he to a friend one 
day. " Well, I have been there. I got out, and I know 
how I got out." Here was the secret of his patient ten- 
derness toward doubters and those troubled with skep- 
tical difficulties, which fitted him to help persons of 
that class, and those who were seeking the solution of 
hard questions. Hence this visit to " the Dominie." 

They received a hearty welcome to his study. They 
found there Miss Rysen, for years the successful teacher 
of the young men's Bible class, from which they had 
gone forth well equipped as teachers. She had come, it 
seems, on the same errand as themselves. 

After the usual exchange of the current small coin of 
conversation concerning the weather, etc., the pastor, 
with a look that swept the little group, said " Weil? " 

The young lawyer responded, " The President of the 
Agnostic Club was in our office yesterday, and he fired 
at me the two stories of David's buying the threshing 
floor of Araunah, or Oman, and asked which one told 
the truth. Really, he had me ; for I confess I do not 
know what to do with the apparent contradiction." He 
read : 

2 Sam. 24 : 24, " So David bought the threshing floor 
and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. ' ' 



of the Bible. 3 

i Chron. 21 : 25, "So David gave to Oman for the 
place six hundred shekels of gold by weight.''' 

Said Argent, " A friend recently put into my hands 
Prof. Henry Preserved Smith's ' Biblical Scholarship and 
Inspiration,' in which he accuses the Chronicler of rais- 
ing the figures, — a procedure contrary to all sound bank- 
ing principles, earthly or heavenly. He says, p. 103, 
1 In case of David's purchase of the field of Ornan, he 
[the Chronicler] finds the price a niggardly one for a 
prince to pay. He therefore does not hesitate (suppos- 
ing that a mistake had been made) to put in a larger 
sum.' And I did not find any help in the solution of the 
difficulty ; for Dr. Alexander, in Kitto's Cyclopaedia of 
Biblical Literature, article 'Araunah,' says that the 
Chronicler's statement makes ' a discrepancy which 
there are no means of reconciling.' " 

Said Miss Rysen, " Only last Sunday a young man in 
my Bible class brought up the same difficulty ; " and she 
continued humorously, " ' Now therefore are we all here 
present,' as Cornelius said to St. Peter." 

The pastor, with a smile that did not indicate anything 
of perplexity, gave a turn to his revolving book-case that 
brought his critical apparatus to hand, and passed around 
some books, saying, as he did so, " L,et us ascertain just 
what were the objects of sale in these two transactions ; 
for evidently these are not two accounts of one bargain, 
but accounts of two bargains." 

He continued : " In 2 Sam. 24 : 24, the things bought 
were ' the threshing floor, ' Hebrew goren, and 'the oxen, ' 
for which the price was fifty shekels of silver, [" $25.09," 
interposed the bank teller] ; while in 1 Chron. 21 : 25, 
David bought ' the place,' maqom, for six hundred shek- 
els of gold." "$4818.00," added Argent. 

' ' Now what about goren and maqom ? ' ' asked the pas- 



4 Alleged Discrepancies 

tor, turning to Fred Leges, who was busy with the 
Englishman's Hebrew Concordance which the pastor had 
handed him. 

" I find," said Fred, "that goren is used thirty-five 
times, and is translated barn, barn floor, corn, corn floor., 
floor, threshing floor, threshing place, and void place." 

Said George Argent, who had the Septuagint and a 
Greek lexicon before him, " Goren is here alona, and the 
lexicon defines it threshing floor, a coiled snake, a bird's 
nest, and the pupil of the eye. A small affair, evidently. ' ' 

" Maqomf continued Fred, is used over four hundred 
times, and is translated country, home, open, place, room, 
space, and whithersoever. Somewhat more extensive, I 
reckon, than the pupil of the eye, a bird's nest, a coiled 
snake, or a threshing floor." 

Miss Rysen, who had Fish's Bible Lands Illustrated in 
hand, was waiting to get in a word. She read from p. 
466, that "The threshing floors are circles of smooth 
ground (generally elevated to catch the wind), some fifty 
or sixty feet in diameter." And she went on to say," It 
is well known that this land which David bought of 
Oman was the site of Solomon's temple, which was the 
summit of Mt. Moriah where Abraham is supposed to 
have offered up Isaac. I recall, now, that in our Normal 
class we learned that the Chel, or Sacred Inclosure, which 
contained the sacred buildings, embraced over four acres, 
while the Court of the Gentiles embraces over twenty- 
two acres. I notice that Dr. Fish, in this book which I 
hold, says, p. 196, that the whole temple area occupies 
thirty-five acres." Then she read from Prof. Murphy's 
Hand Book, or Commentary, on Chronicles, which the 
pastor handed her, " The value of the place \§ here given. 
That of the threshing floor and oxen is given in Samuel" 
(P- 72). 



OF THE BlBI,K. ' 5 

A look of astonishment overspread the faces of the 
young men, and the lawyer exclaimed, " Yes, I see it ! 
David bought the few feet of threshing floor and the oxen 
for $25. Then, wanting 4 'the place, ' ' the thirty-five acres 
which contained the little plot, 'my lord the king' buys 
it at 'the full price,' $4818. Notmuchofa 'discrepancy' 
there ! Why didn't I see that before, Mr. President of 
the Agnostic Club? " 

All joined in the hearty laugh that followed, and the 
pastor quietly added, "With all due respect to Prof. 
Smith and the Scotch Alexander, I think this reconcili- 
ation of the difficulty is perfect ; and, in my judgment, 
other alleged discrepancies can be disposed of quite as 
satisfactorily." 

" Yes," said George, "we have had several thrown up 
at us, but we shall need you to help us out. May we 
come again ?" 

Of course permission was gladly given. They arose 
to depart, and as they all stood in a little circle, the 
pastor offered a brief prayer for them ; and as he 
prayed, resolving light seemed to descend from above, 
flooding their minds and hearts, and making that study 
seem a very vestibule to heaven ! 



Alleged Discrepancies 



CHAPTER II. 



Just a week from the time the young lawyer, Fred 
Leges, the bank teller, George Argent, and Miss Rysen, 
were at the pastor's study, they met there again for fur- 
ther consideration of Bible difficulties. 

The lawyer was in fine feather, for he had had another 
encounter with the president of the Agnostic Club, and 
he did not come off second best this time. The infidel 
introduced again the story of David's buying the thresh- 
ing floor of Oman. Fred told him that he had received 
some light on that subject since their former conversa- 
tion, and proceeded to show him that in the first account, 
2 Sam. 24 : 24, the objects of purchase were the oxen, 
and a threshing floor, a little plot of ground only about 
75 feet in diameter, at a price of 50 shekels of silver, or 
about $25 ; while in the second, 1 Chron. 21 : 25, it was 
" the place," some 35 acres, for which the larger sum, 600 
shekels of gold, or $4,818, was paid. 

The skeptic was nonplussed, but he quickly rallied 
and said, " No, no, my son ; that won't go down with 
me, for the cattle must have been worth $25. I insist 
that ' the threshing floor ' and ' the place ' were identi- 
cal." 

The lawyer's wit rose to the occasion, and he 
responded: " Well, Mr. President, thanks for your fine 
appreciation of live stock, even though you seem unable 
(or shall I say unwilling?) to discriminate between these 
other things that differ. Of course a broad-minded man 
like you won't stick at the location of so small a thing as 
a comma. We are told that the old manuscripts were 
written without punctuation marks, and that these are 



of the Bible. 7 

supplied as the sense requires." At this juncture Fred 
passed over to him a slip on which he had been writing, 
11 So David bought the threshing floor, and the oxen for 
$25.00." 

The skeptic was thoroughly beaten on his own ground. 
At this turn his eyes seemed plentifully punctuated with 
exclamation points, and, being unable to find a word to 
say in reply, he ejaculated, as he shot out of the office, 
"Young man, your smartness will be the death of you 
some day !" 

Argent and Miss Rysen were greatly amused at Fred's 
narration. At its conclusion he turned to the pastor with 
an inquiring look, as much as to say, "What do you think 
of it?" 

The pastor responded, "Good enough, as against a 
caviller. And good enough anyway, some may think, 
for this view is not new." As he said this he took from 
the revolving case Schaff's Bible Dictionary, opened it at 
p. 63, and read, "David therefore bought the oxen for 
50 shekels of silver, 2 Sam. 24 : 24, and the whole place for 
600 shekels of gold, 1 Chron. 21 : 25." The pastor con- 
tinued, " 'The threshing floor,' goren, and 'the place,' 
maqom, are certainly not identical, except as the less is 
included in the greater ; and as our explanation last 
week fairly and fully meets the case, without any 
attempt at shrewdness or special pleading, I greatly pre- 
fer that." So thought the others; but still they felt 
that the skeptic had been well answered. 

Then Miss Rysen said, " I have two passages on which 
I need help. The first is, Matt. 27 : 9, 10, ' Then was 
fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy, the prophet, say- 
ing, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of 
him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel 
did value, and gave them for the potter' s field, as the Lord 



8 Alleged Discrepancies 

appointed me.'' No such passage is found in Jeremiah, 
but the quotation seems to be from Zech. n : 12, 13." 

Said the pastor, " There are different ways of dealing 
with this difficulty. The first is, frankly to admit that 
Matthew made a mistake ! Says Dean Alford, ' The 
citation is probably quoted from memory and inaccur- 
ately.' Says Prof. Briggs, Biblical Study, p. 191, ' It is 
now generally conceded that the evangelist made a mis- 
take. ' But this method, if summary, is not satisfactory. ' ' 

" The second," he continued, " is to credit the alleged 
error to a transcriber, since the names Jeremiah and 
Zechariah, if written in the crude Hebrew, would have 
only a single letter of difference between them, and a scribe 
could easily mistake one letter for the other ; or, if written 
in Greek, Jeremiah, instead of being written in full, might 
stand Iriou and Zechariah Zriou." And he added, 
" The Presbyterian General Assembly of 1893, at Wash- 
ington, made this deliverance: 'That the Bible, as we 
now have it, in its various translations and versions, 
when freed from all errors and mistakes of translators, 
copyists and printers, is the very Word of God, and con- 
sequently without error ' (Minutes, p. 169). This seems 
to me to show the sacred Scriptures a courtesy that, to 
say the least, is no more than becoming ; besides, it is 
fair, safe and wise. Accordingly, this alleged error 
should be credited to a copyist rather than to Matthew, 
who certainly could have written Zechariah as easily as 
Jeremiah, and who, it may be assumed, knew quite as 
well as we, what he ought to say." 

"A third method," said he, "is that of Lightfoot, 
one of the greatest Hebrew scholars in history. It was 
the custom of the Jews to divide the Old Testament into 
three parts : the first, beginning with Genesis, was called 
the Law ; the second, embracing the poetical books, was 



oe the Bible. 9 

called the Psalms ; the third was the Prophets, at the 
head of which stood Jeremiah, and consequently the 
writings of Zechariah and of the other prophets, being 
included in that division which began with Jeremiah, 
and all quotations from it, would go under that prophet's 
name. So Dr. Lightfoot, quoting Jewish authorities to 
sustain him, insists that the word Jeremiah is perfectly 
correct, as standing at the head of that division from 
which the evangelist quoted, and which gave its denom- 
ination to the rest." 

" A fourth method is that of Daniel Whitby," said the 
pastor. " He quotes from Jerome, who was bora about 
A. D. 340, to the effect that in his day there was extant an 
apocryphal book of Jeremiah, in which the words quoted 
by St. Matthew were exactly found. Traditional words 
of Enoch were quoted by Jude, vs. 14, 15, and through 
this apostle received the sanction of divine inspiration. 
So, claims Whitby, Matthew in like manner quoted the 
traditional words of Jeremiah." 

Miss Rysen gave a look of relief, and the young men 
expressed themselves in terms of decided satisfaction. 

1 'But," the pastor went on to say, "there is some- 
thing still more satisfactory to me. You will observe that 
the passage in Matthew is not-a. quotation from Zechariah, 
as is alleged, but is no more than an allusion to, or 
adaptation of it, such as is common to speakers and 
writers, even to inspired prophets. Compare Isa. 2 : 1- 
4 with Micah 4 : 1-5, and Isa. 62 : 11 with Zech. 9 : 9, 
for examples. [These were read.] There was a saying 
among the Jews anciently that ' the spirit of Jeremiah 
rested on Zechariah ;' and it appears, from Zech. 7 : 12, 
that he was familiar with • the words which the Lord of 
hosts hath sent in His Spirit by the former prophets.' I 
think you will see, x as I read them, that Jer. 18 : 1-4, 



io Alleged Discrepancies 

and 19 : 1-3, are the original and fundamental passages 
about the potter, which Zechariah apparently adopts and 
adapts to suit his own purpose. Lange adds Jer. 32 : 6- 
8, 14. The passage to which Matthew alludes in 
Zechariah is, then, a reproduction of what Jeremiah had 
previously spoken. Farrar, in his Life of Christ, chap. 
Lix, says, ' St. Matthew, ever alive to Old Testament 
analogies, connects this circumstance with passages (ap- 
parently) of Jeremiah (xviii, 1,2; xxxii, 6-12), and 
Zechariah (xi, 12, 13) ;' but Lange says ' the allusion 
here to Zech. 11 : 13, is very slight.' So, then, it is clear 
that Matthew was entirely correct in naming the earlier 
prophet rather than the later one, Jeremiah rather than 
Zechariah. He therefore made no 'mistake,' but has 
told the truth." 

If the young people were satisfied before, they were 
delighted now. 

Said George Argent: "This brings to mind a diffi- 
culty I have had in connection with Matthew's quota- 
tion, chapter ii, verse 15, 'Out of Egypt have I called 
my Son,' from Hosea xi : 1. In Hosea the reference is 
plainly to ' Israel,' the Jewish people ; and now to make 
it refer to Christ's return from Egypt involves a subtle 
principle of application that I do not understand." 

Said the pastor : "If you will turn to Gibson's ' The 
Mosaic Era,' chapter i, * Israel in Egypt,' you will find 
the difficulty finely met (pp. 7-9). His idea is, that 
God's promise of a ' son ' to Abraham covers in its ful- 
fillment, three eras : the patriarchal, national, and gos- 
pel. In the patriarchal era, in the first generation Isaac 
was the son of promise to the exclusion of Ishmael ; in 
the second generation, Jacob to the exclusion of Esau ; 
in the third generation Joseph had ' the birthright ' 
(1 Chron. 5:1,2). A change of dispensation brings in 



of the Bible. i i 

the next, or national era, when the ' son ' is no longer 
an individual, but the nation as a whole : ' Israel is my 
son, even my firstborn ' (Ex. 4:22); also ' When Israel 
was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of 
Egypt ' (Hos. 11 : 1). Thus you see that Israel was 
the fourth ' son ' in the succession, and his history covers 
the whole period of the national era. Now when another 
change of dispensation brings in the gospel era, or per- 
haps I would better say, when the coming of the gospel 
era brings in a change of dispensation, where can you 
find the i son of promise' except in 'Jesus Christ, the 
son of David, the son of Abraham ' (Matt. 1:1)? So, 
as Dr. Gibson well says, this passage, ' Out of Egypt 
have I called my son,' which manifestly refers to the 
nation of Israel, has, as used by Matthew, been often 
cited as a misapplication of prophecy ; and some com- 
mentators have tried to defend it on the ground of its 
being a mere accommodation ; whereas it is most natural, 
most appropriate, and most striking when we only keep 
in mind the link of connection between the son of the 
earlier and the son of the later era, and the closely typi- 
cal relation between them." 

Said George meditatively: "I see, I s-e-e." Then 
brightening up, he added : " Why won't this method of 
application, or interpretation, relieve the difficulty in 
regard to the ' Servant of Jehovah ' of whom Isaiah 
speaks ? " 

Said the pastor: " That is just what Dr. Gibson goes 
on to do. After his disposition of Matt. 2:15 and Hos. 
11 : 1, which I have shown you, he adds : ' Or take 
those passages where the Servant of Jehovah is spoken 
of in Isaiah ; and how erroneous it is at once seen to be, 
to conclude that because some of these passages seem to 
refer to the nation of Israel, therefore they do not refer 



12 Alleged Discrepancies 

to the Holy One of Israel, of whom the holy nation was 
an imperfect type.' : 

Said George warmly : " This is refreshing and satisfy- 
ing." And he added : " Please excuse this interruption 
of mine : Miss Rysen has still another passage to pre- 
sent." But the evening was so far spent, the consider- 
ation of it was deferred until the next meeting. 



of the Bible. 13 



CHAPTER III. 

At the third meeting of the young people with the 
pastor to seek the solution of Scripture difficulties, Miss 
Rysen was first called upon for the deferred passage, on 
which she desired help. 

Said she : " I find so much satisfaction in the Word of 
God just as it is, that it never occurs to me to look for 
discrepancies. Really, I had never noticed this one un- 
til it was recently brought up in my class. The passage 
is Mark 16 : 14, 'Afterward he appeared unto the eleven.' 
Judas was dead (Matt. 27 ; 5), and Thomas was absent 
(Jno. 20 : 24) ; consequently only ten of the apostles were 
present." 

Said the pastor, "St. Luke uses the same form of 
expression : ' And they rose up the same hour, and re- 
turned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered to- 
gether ' (24 : 33) . It is hardly to be supposed that both 
Mark and Luke were ignorant of the death of Judas and 
the absence of Thomas, or were incapable of making a 
proper mathematical computation. This difficulty seems 
to me to be very easily and satisfactorily disposed of 
when we understand that ( the eleven ' was a technical 
term used to denote the body of the apostolate collective- 
ly, and not as distinguishing them numerically. Accord- 
ingly, Alexander, in his commentary on Mark, page 
441, says, ' The eleven has reference to the whole body, 
as then constituted, not to the number actually present 
upon any one occasion.' " 

The pastor continued: "When Matthew says (28 : 
16), 'Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee,' 
he speaks numerically, and eleven disciples were there ; 



14 Alleged Discrepancies 

but if he had said ' the eleven,' or 'the disciples,' he 
would have spoken of a body without definitely stating 
their number. John speaks (21 : i) of ' the disciples,' 
and our first impression might be that the whole aposto- 
late was intended ; but he goes on to enumerate seven 
only as present. St. Paul must have known of the death 
of Judas, but he still speaks of the diminished apostolate 
as ' the twelve ' (1 Cor. 15 : 5), — ' a name, not of num- 
ber, but of office,' as Lange puts it." 

"It is, I may add," he went on to say, "in accord- 
ance with common rhetorical usage for numerals, when 
used of a body collectively, to lose their strict numerical 
character. For instance, the population of Rome was 
divided into three parts, which were called ' tribes,' from 
the Latin tribus, three; but afterwards when the divisions 
were increased to thirty-five, they were still called 
'tribes.' Centumviri means ' a hundred men.' Three 
judges were chosen from each of the thirty-five tribes, 
making one hundred and five in all, but they were called 
■ centumviri ' nevertheless. This was their technical, of- 
ficial designation, which continued the same when, 
in the time of the emperors, the number was 
increased to one hundred and eighty. So decemviri 
means ' ten men ' ; and though the first decemvirate, 
451 B. C, consisted of ten men, the second had only six. 
There was a decemvirate of priests which had, at differ- 
ent stages, two, ten, fifteen, and sixty members ; but ac- 
cording to the mathematical meaning of the word, there 
should have been always and only ten. Mathematical ex- 
actness is hardly expected when speaking of the so 
called ' Four Hundred ' of New York society." 

"By which," interrogated the lawyer, who had been 
paying keen attention to this disquisition, "we are to 
understand that numerals in such cases, when used mathe- 



of the Bible. 15 

matically, are used with exactness ; but when used rhe- 
torically, to denote a body collectively, or to express a 
technical official designation, they are used with inexact- 
ness, and may mean less or more, according to circum- 
stances?" 

" Precisely so," said the pastor. "Therefore, when 
we regard, as manifestly we ought to, Mark, L,uke, and 
Paul as speaking of the apostolate as a collective whole, 
and not as numerically distinguished, the discrepancy, 
so called, instantly disappears." 

The look of satisfaction that overspread the faces of 
the little group was delightful to behold. But George 
Argent, the bank teller, eagerly interposed, "It's my 
turn now. In my work, accounts have to balance ; but 
here is an account that I can't make balance. Last 
evening I read 1 Cor. 10:8, 'And fell in o?ie day three 
and twenty thousand.' My Bagster referred me back 
to the historical scene, Numbers 15:9, 'And those that 
died in the plague were twenty and four thousand. ' Here 
seems to be a discrepancy of a thousand according to my 
system of bookkeeping." 

The pastor smiled and said, " Even if these two texts 
refer to the same thing in all respects, there is no con- 
tradiction, for St. Paul does not make ' a slip of the pen,' 
as Ewald charges him with doing, and say that no more 
than twenty-three thousand fell. If twenty-four thou- 
sand died, surely twenty-three thousand died, for the less 
is included in the greater. But attention to the language 
will show that there is not the shadow of a discrepancy. 
St. Paul speaks of the number that fell in 'one day,' 
while the larger number expresses the deaths in the en- 
tire visitation of judgment, 'the plague,' which in the 
nature of things could hardly have been confined to the 
period of one day. Let me give you, by the way, this 



16 Alleged Discrepancies 

hint : Often strict attention to the precise language will 
resolve many an apparent difficulty, as in the case of the 
much bruited story with which you first came to me, 
that of David and the threshing-floor of Oman, or Ara- 
unah, 2 Sam. 24 : 24, and 1 Chron. 21 : 25." 

" Hurrah !" said Fred Leges enthusiastically : " this 
case is just what a member of the Agnostic Club brought 
up in my office this week ; and if I had had the wit to 
look carefully at the language, I could have answered 
him. I am learning something, thanks to you, my dear 
pastor, and I'll do better next time." 

Then he went onto say, " George's difficulty with this 
number seems to be quite along the line of his profes- 
sion : his books must balance. Now don't laugh at a poor 
fellow of the legal persuasion when I say that the other 
day, after a bit of sharp experience, I studied the sub- 
ject of temptation. Thank the Lord, I found what I 
needed. But here are a couple of passages I don't know 
what to do with : 

Gen. 22 : 1, ' It came to pass after these thi?igs that God 
did tempt Abraham." 

James 1 : 13, ' God cannot be tempted with evil, neither 
tempteth he any man.' " 

A sympathetic look came into the pastor's eyes and a 
sympathetic tone into his voice — for he had also " suf- 
fered, being tempted" — as he responded : " The word 
'tempt' (Greek 7rei<>a£a>) has three distinct and well- 
marked stages of meaning : 1 To attempt, assay, as in 
Acts 16:7,' They assayed to go into Bithynia,' or Acts 
24 : 6, when it is translated gone about; 2. To try, to put 
to test, to prove, as in J no. 6:6,' This he said to prove 
him;' and 3. To solicit to evil, as in Matt. 4 : 1, ' Tempted 
of the devil.' It is the same Greek word in all these 
places. God did 'tempt,' i. e., try, test, prove, Abraham, 



OF THE BlBI,K. 17 

but did not solicit him with evil, or to do evil. Thus the 
word ' tempt ' has a good and a bad sense. The first, the 
good sense, may be predicated of God, but not the second. 
Understanding the difference of meanings in the word, 
the ' discrepancy ' disappears." 



18 Alleged Discrepancies 



CHAPTER IV. 



Soon after the third meeting in the pastor's study, 
George Argent, the bank-teller, went up to the office of 
the young lawyer, Fred Leges, to spend the evening. The 
completeness with which " the Dominie" had solved the 
alleged discrepancies of the Bible which they had taken 
to him, and the ease with which he brushed away diffi- 
culties, inspired these two ardent young Christian work- 
ers with a sort of military enthusiasm to rout the Agnos- 
tic Club, horse, foot, and dragoons. 

As Argent comfortably seated himself, Leges turned, 
"I say, George, the hint the Dominie gave us at our 
last meeting, I believe has lots of sense in it : 'Often 
strict attention to the precise language will resolve many 
an apparent difficult} 7 .' The president of the Agnostic 
Club has fought shy of me since our last encounter on 
the David-Ornan threshing-floor difficulty ; but to day 
he was up here, and he slipped a paper before me with 
three texts of scripture written on it, saying, 'There, 
young man, try your molars on that.' They were these : 

Gen. 46 : 26, "All the souls that came with Jacob into 
Egypt, which ca?ne out of his loins, besides Jacob 's son's 
wives, all the souls were three score and six "(66). 

Gen. 46 : 27, "And the sons oj Joseph, which were born 
him in Egypt, were two souls ; all the souls oj the house of 
Jacob, which came into Egypt, were three score a?id te?i ' ' 

(70). 

Acts 7 : 14, "Then sent Joseph and called his Jather 
Jacob to hi?n, and all his kindred three score and Jijteen 
(75) souls r 
Said Leges, "These varying numbers, 66, 70 and 75, 



OF THE BlBLB. 19 

look rather formidable ; but I see they are set in variant 
conditions, and I shouldn't wonder if the Dominie's hint 
will enable us to solve the problem. Let's go down to 
Miss Rysen's and work it out if we can." 

Miss Rysen was always "at home" to her young 
men. Her Bible class was almost the institution of the 
town. Hardly a young man could come to reside in 
the place without being invited, either by herself or 
some of her workers, to join it. And all were brought 
face to face with their personal relations to the Lord 
Jesus Christ. Many a young man will rise up and call 
her blessed, for to her he owes his introduction to the 
Saviour. This suggestion to go to Miss Rysen's was like 
an invitation to go "next door to heaven," as one of 
her class once characterized her parlor. 

Sitting under the chandelier, with Bibles in hand, 
they went to work. " Strict attention to the precise 
language, now," said Fred. Miss Rysen's quick discern- 
ment led her to speak first : ' ' Why ! each verse has its 
own problem, and each different from the others. 1. Gen. 
46 : 26, ' which came out of his loins,' i. e., his descend- 
ants, who ' came with Jacob into Egypt.' Joseph was 
already there ; 2. Gen. 46 : 27, ' the house of Jacob,' i.e., 
the aforesaid descendants plus Joseph and his sons, for 
all these 'came into Egypt;' 3. Acts 7 114, .'all his 
kindred.' " Leges, in astonishment, gave Argent a 
resounding whack on the back, exclaiming, "George, 
we've got it ! we've got it ! now, you see !" 

Perhaps two hours were spent in this study, working 
at the geneaological table in the forty-sixth chapter of 
Genesis, and hunting up the marginal references. The 
discovery of the death of the wives of Simeon and 
Judah resolved the last difficulty, and the " books bal- 
anced," as Argent put it. Their researches gave the 
following results : 



20 



Alleged Discrepancies 



I. JACOB'S DESCENDANTS. 



Jacob s eleven sons and on 


e daughter 


12 


Reuben's sons, 


. 


4 


Simeon's " 




6 


Levi's 




3 


Judah's " . 


. 


3 


Issaehar's " 




4 


Zebulon's " . 




3 


Gad's 




7 


Asher's " and one 


daughter 


5 


Dan's 




i 


Naphtali's 


. 


4 


Benjamin's " 


. 


10 


Judah's grandsons 




2 


Asher's 


■ • 


2 

66 


II. "THE HOUSE OF JACOB." 




All the above, 




66 


Joseph and two sons, 




3 


Jacob himself, 




i 
70 


in. "ALL 


HIS KINDRED." 




Descendants, 




66 


Living wives of Jacob's sons (the wives of Simeon 




and Judah being dead), 


. 


9 



75 

As George Argent passed over a sheet with the above 
written upon it in his best banking hand, this trio of 
Bible students took genuine satisfaction, as well they 
might, in the results of their work. " Now," said 



of thk Bible. 21 

George, "I have a little nut to crack. I have again 
been looking into Professors Evans' and Smith's ' Biblical 
Scholarship and Inspiration.' On page 102 Professor 
Smith presents several apparent discrepancies, besides 
the threshing-floor one, which our pastor disposed of so 
annihilatingly ; and his contention is that these appar- 
ent discrepancies are real ones, indeed down-right errors. 
Here it is :" 

1 Chron. 21:5, There were of all Israel, 1,100,000 that 
drew sword, and Judah was 4.70,000 that drew sword. 

2 Sam. 24 : 9, There were in Israel 800,000 valiant 
men who drew sword, and the men of Judah were 500,000. 

" Strict attention, remember, to the precise language," 
said Miss Rysen, smiling at Leges. He looked carefully at 
the texts, and exclaimed : " Pshaw ! Ask me something 
harder please !" And he went on, " The larger number 
1,100,000 in the northern kingdom, Israel, is of those 
'that drew sword,' i. e. the whole military array, of 
whom the smaller number, 800,000 were ' valiant men.' 
The differentiating word, ■ valiant,' amply accounts for 
the difference in numbers." Said Miss Rysen : "The 
male population of the southern kingdom, Judah, was 
500,000, and of that number 470,000 did military duty, 
' drew sword.' Where is the discrepancy, pray tell?" 
"Somewhat like my class in college," said Argent; 
" there were fifty men in the class, forty-seven of whom 
took military drill. The other three were disabled and 
therefore exempt." 

A pained expression came over Argent's face, and he 
said sadly, "The authors of 'Biblical Scholarship and 
Inspiration ' were professors in a Presbyterian theolog- 
ical seminary, and set for the defense of the Bible, but 
it seems to me their effort was to discredit the Bible ; at 
least this is the effect. I fear I would have been swept 



22 Alleged Discrepancies 

off my feet some time ago, had it not been for our beloved 
pastor. But I am safe now. I read in a Chicago secular 
paper to-day, ' Preachers who set themselves to over- 
throw the landmarks which their spiritual fathers have 
planted, have done more to undermine faith than all the 
professed opponents of Christianity.' And recently I 
read this from the distinguished Dutch theological pro- 
fessor, Van Oosterzee : ' No church summons ministers 
to contest her beliefs, and no one can demand of her an 
act of suicide in the name of progress and toleration.' 
So I don't wonder that the grand old Presbyterian 
church bounces its Briggses and its Smiths." 

On their way home, the young men saw a light in the 
pastor's study, and went in. They reported the whole 
evening in detail, much to his delight. He fully 
endorsed their findings. As they were about to leave, 
he put a hand affectionately on the shoulder of each one 
as they stood together, and caressingly said, " Good 
boys ! good boys ! Go on, in this good way. ' Contend 
earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints,' as 
Jude bids, and 'speak the truth in love.' " His voice 
glided naturally into prayer, and to his earnest petitions 
that the Holy Spirit would guide them into all truth, 
and enable them to exemplify its practicalities in their 
lives before and with men in their daily affairs, and so 
give it its most effective commendation, they each re- 
sponded with a fervent "Amen." 



of thk Bible. 23 



CHAPTER V. 



The trio of Bible students, Miss Rysen, Fred Leges 
and George Argent came to the pastor's study for a 
fifth meeting, to get explanation of still further alleged 
Bible ''discrepancies." 

Argent was the first to broach the subject. Said he, 
" I have been reading ' Beginnings of Christianity,' by 
Rev. Dr. George P. Fisher, Professor of Ecclesiastical 
History in Yale College. On page 406, speaking of the 
different accounts of Peter's second denial of Christ, he 
says, 'It is a case where a narrator might not wish to be 
held responsible for a strictly accurate statement.' ' 

Said the pastor, " I noticed the same thing in the Pro- 
fessor's book, and, after a little investigation, I found 
the difficulty very easily solved, when once I had the 
clue." 

Miss Rysen expressed astonishment that a man of that 
Professor's orthodox standing, should insinuate inaccu- 
racy in Bible statements, and more yet that he himself 
did not solve a difficulty which a pastor found easy of solu- 
tion — a pastor, too, whose time for scholarly research, 
unlike the time of a college professor, is greatly abridged 
by constantly encroaching pastoral cares. George 
Argent clapped his hands in applause, in which Fred 
joined, as Miss Rysen with a look toward her pastor of 
mingled admiration and triumph, concluded, " What 
is easy for our pastor ought not to be impossible to a 
distinguished college professor. ' ' Blushing as she saw 
the warmth of expression into which she had been led by 
her loyalty to the Word, she meekly added, " I think I 
had better subside. ' ' 



24 Alleged Discrepancies 

The pastor seemed somewhat annoyed by the compar- 
ison, and looking as though he did not altogether relish 
this applauded reflection upon a renowned incumbent of 
a celebrated historical chair, the justice and pertinency 
of which, however, he must have admitted, he hastened 
to call for the passages in question. They were : 

Mk. 14 : 69, " And a maid saw him and began to say." 
Matt. 26 : 71, "Another [maid'] saw him a?id said." 
Lk. 22 : 58, " Another [ma?i\ saw him and said." 
Said the pastor, " Much has been made of the differ- 
ence of persons in these passages, — a difference empha- 
sized by the properly supplied words in the brackets. 
Peter's first denial of Christ was in the open court as he 
was warming himself by the fire (Lk. 22 : 55). After- 
ward he went out into the porch, and these three texts 
have reference to the challenges that there occasioned 
his second denial. Happily, John 18 : 25 furnishes the 
clew, which many have overlooked, that entirely solves 
the difficulty. There was, doubtless, in company with 
Peter in the porch, a more or less numerous, excited 
throng. Quite confident of his identity, they fling at 
him, either simultaneously or in quick succession, their 
angry charges of alliance with Jesus ; for John's ' They 
said therefore unto him ' conclusively proves the plural- 
ity of the charges. John's ' they ' will therefore include 
Mark's 'maid,' Matthew's 'another maid,' Luke's 
1 another man,' and we know not how many more. Thus 
these texts are perfectly harmonious." 

The completeness of this vindication of the accuracy 
of the scripture accounts, which have so long been ques- 
tioned, of Peter's denial, came as a fresh surprise to the 
little group. They thanked the pastor heartily for the 
confirmation he was giving to their confidence in the 
Word of God, when so many teachers in high places are, 



of the Bible. x 25 

even though undesignedly, weakening faith in it ; and 
Argent, who is quite an extensive and discriminating 
reader, said, " It may yet be here, as it now seems com- 
ing to be in Germany, the defenders of ' the faith once 
delivered to the saints,' will be the pastors as against the 
theological professors. ' ' The pastor, with some emphasis, 
expressed the hope and conviction that George was tak- 
ing too gloomy a view of the theological faculties. And 
he added, ' ' What we need is a genuine Holy Ghost revival, 
and when that comes, 'the Spirit of Truth' will lead 
these misguided and misguiding brethren into the truth : 
mist will be cleared out of mystified brains." 

Said Fred Leges, " I have to lead the meeting of our 
Endeavor Society next Sunday evening, and the sub- 
ject is ' Burdens.' My dear pastor, will you kindly show 
me what to do with the apparent contradiction in these 
two texts? 

Gal. 6 : 2, ■ Bear ye one another's burdens;' and Gal. 
6:5,' Every ma?i shall bear his own burden.' " 

Said the pastor, "The English word 'burden' here 
translates two different Greek words. The first is baros, 
weight, which enters into the word barometer, an instru- 
ment for measuring the weight or pressure-force of the 
atmosphere. It is used in Matt. 20 : 12, ' Which have 
borne the burden and heat of the day,' where the idea is 
that of a load, labor, toil, which another may share. 
The second is phortion, another word altogether, and is 
used in Lk. 11 : 46, ' Ye lade men with burdens grievous 
to be borne, ' where the idea seems to be that of imposi- 
tion of obligations, non -fulfilling which, guilt is incurred. 
Baros belongs to the realm of social sympathy and help : 
phortion to that of individual responsibility. The first 
may be shared : the second must be borne alone. The 
apparent contradiction vanishes when we understand that 



;:■■* 



26 Alleged Discrepancies 

the two texts are speaking, not of the same, but of dif- 
ferent things. But," said the pastor, turning to Fred, 
' ' you will have to use this explanation in your own way 
at the Endeavor meeting." 

Miss Rysen said she would like help on a couple of 
verses a member of her class brought to her for reconcil- 
iation. She read them : 

Gen. 2:2, " On the seventh day God ended his work 
which he had made, and he rested the seventh day from all 
his work which he had made. ' ' 

John 5 : 17, "Jesus answered them, My father worketh 
hitherto [Rev. even until now] and I work." 

Said the pastor, "The contradiction between God 
ceasing from work and his continuing in work is only 
apparent, and not real, for the simple reason that, as in 
the case of the texts Mr. Leges just submitted, different 
things are spoken of. The work spoken of in Genesis 
is the work of creation recounted in the preceding chap- 
ter : from that God did cease. The work spoken of in 
John is providential and redemptive work : that has con- 
tinued ' even until now,' and goes on unceasingly. The 
work being not identical, but different, there can be no 
contradiction between the statements." 

The visitors expressed their satisfaction in, and thank- 
fulness for, the explanations given, and after planning 
for another meeting in the near future, went their home- 
ward way. 



OF THK Bible. 27 



CHAPTER VI. 

In accordance with the plan formed at the last meeting, 
the trio soon found themselves again in the pastor's 
study for a sixth meeting. 

Said the young lawyer, Fred Leges, "I have been 
studying Farrar's Life of Christ, and I must say I like 
it and I don't like it. I like it for the clear elucidation 
and bright illumination it gives of gospel narratives and 
scenes ; but I don't like his tendency to make such ready 
concessions to the criticisms and objections of those who 
do not seem over friendly to the Word of God. Indeed, 
he seems to me sometimes to make, if you will allow me, 
a ' dead give away ' to infidelity. To-day I read chapter 
xi/vtii, 'Jericho and Bethany,' and in treating of 
Christ's healing the blind men at Jericho, as recorded in 
Matt. 20 : 29-34, Mk. 10 : 46-52, and Lk. 18 : 35-43, he 
says, ' Those who have a narrow, timid, superstitious, 
and unscriptural view of inspiration, may well be 
troubled by the obvious discrepancies between the 
evangelists in this narrative.' I wonder if he means by 
the word ' obvious ' what the dictionary says — ' perfectly 
manifest, easily and plainly to be perceived, palpably 
true.' That there is a difficulty in this narrative I am 
aware ; but before admitting that there is a ' palpably 
true ' discrepancy, I would like to hear from our pastor." 

The pastor thus appealed to responded : ' ' The tend- 
ency to which you refer I noticed, and I was pained by 
it ; but his Life of Christ, written more than twenty-five 
years ago, is hardly a circumstance, in this respect, to 
his late work on the Book of Daniel. I think he has 



28 Alleged Discrepancies 

incurred a very serious responsibility, to be settled with 
the Author of the Bible." 

Continued the pastor : " As to the alleged, but by no 
means * obvious, ' discrepancy which Fred has brought 
to our attention, I have given it careful consideration, 
and to me it presents not only no 'discrepancy,' but 
hardly a difficulty worth considering. The passages 
begin : 

Matt. 20:29, 'And as they departed from Jericho, 
behold two blind men ,' etc. 

Mk. 10 : 46, ' And as he went out of Jericho with his 
disciples, . . . blind Bartimeus, ' etc. 

Lk. 18 : 35, ' And it came to pass that as he was come 
nigh U7ito Jericho a certai?i bli?id man,' etc. 

" Let me call your attention to a statement of Lee (In- 
spiration of Scripture, p. 353), who, following Au- 
gustine, says, ' Any solution which affords a possible 
mode of harmonizing those statements of the sacred 
writers which present a semblance of opposition, is to be 
admitted before we can allow the existence of a contra- 
diction.' You readily see that the trouble is made simply 
by insisting that the three evangelists must refer to the 
same event. It is possible, not only, but to me it is more 
than probable, that they refer to two different events. 
The healing which Matthew and Mark record occurred 
as Christ and his disciples departed from Jericho, while 
that recorded by Luke occurred as they entered. Allow 
that these narratives simply tell the truth, as do 
Augustine, and such modern scholars as Greswell, Light- 
foot, Kbrard, and others, and the difficulty instantly 
disappears." 

" Perhaps it ought to be added," said the pastor, " as 
a relief to what Fred began with, that Farrar says in the 
same foot-note from which he quoted, ' I believe that if 



of thk Bible. 29 

we knew the exact circumstances, the discrepancy would 
vanish.' Still, his unfortunate ' tendency ' could hardly 
keep him from going on to say, ' But even if, in the 
course of time, any trivial inaccuracy had found its way 
into the early documents on which St. L,uke based his 
gospel, I should see nothing distressing or derogatory in 
such a supposition ' — an admission which, as it seems to 
me, can only accord with a low and unworthy view of 
divine inspiration ; for how 8 can an inspiration that can- 
not guarantee against a ' trivial ' inaccuracy, guarantee 
against a vital one ?" 

" But,'* interposed George Argent, " Matthew speaks 
of two healings, and Mark of but one. Do these refer to 
the same event ?" 

"Yes, I think so," answered the pastor. "Trench, 
speaking of these three accounts says, * They can 
at once be reduced to two, by the rule, which in all 
reconciliation of parallel histories must be held fast, 
namely, that the silence of one narrator is not to be 
assumed as the contradiction of the statement of another.' 
Thus, and also on the principle that the greater includes 
the less, Matthew's two would include Mark's one. 
Moreover, since Mark is the only one who gives the 
name of the man who was healed, it may be that there 
was some special circumstance of prominence, or some 
other sufficient consideration, which led him to specifi- 
cally single out Bartimeus, and bring him alone to the 
fore. Though he mentions but one, that is no reason 
there were not the two of whom Matthew speaks. 
Therefore I think Matthew and Mark refer to the same 
event while L,uke refers to still another." 

Miss Rysen added, "I have noticed that those who 
hold that these three narratives refer to the same event do 
so because of the marked similarity of the accounts ; 



30 Alleged Discrepancies 

Trench, for example, among other points of agreement, 
instancing that 'our Lord was besought in almost the 
same words by blind beggars on the wayside, for mercy.' 
Though their cries arenocin all respects identical, each 
one uses the language, ' Thou son of David, have mercy 
on me,' or ' us.' " 

Said the pastor, "That seems to have been with the 
afflicted, a sort of common formula of appeal to Christ. 
The two blind men who were cured perhaps a year and 
a half earlier, used the same language (Matt. 9 : 27). 
The Syrophoenician woman's cry was, 'Have mercy on 
me, O Lord, thou son of David.' Geike tells us that 
while in northern Europe there is only one blind person 
in a thousand, in some parts of the east there is one in 
every hundred. A modern traveller calculates that there 
are twenty blind persons in every hundred in Cairo. The 
frequency with which blindness appears among the ail- 
ments mentioned in the gospels would surprise one who 
has not considered the matter. The good news of the 
Healer must have rapidly spread over the whole country, 
and the method of approach must have become well 
known; accordingly the appeal, 'Thou son of David, 
have mercy on me,' may well have become a common 
formula. The similarity of these accounts can perfectly 
consist with their narrating different events." 

After hearty expressions of satisfaction with this expla- 
nation, Fred said, " I have another nut to crack. Yes- 
terday the president of the Agnostic Club was up in our 
office again, and he read me three passages of Scripture, 
which, upon my word, I do not see what to do with. 
Said I, I am very busy to-day, but I will see you later; 
which meant, of course, after our visit to ' the Dominie ' ! 
Here they are, with some brackets I have supplied." 



of the Bible. 31 

1 Sam. 31 : 4-5, " Therefore Saul took a sword and fell 
upon it ; and when his armor-bearer saw that Saul was 
dead, he fell likewise upon his sword and died with him." 

2 Sam. 21 : 12, " The Philistines had slain Saul in 
Gil boa." 

2 Sam. 1 : 10, " So I [the A male kite] stood upon him 
[Saul] and slew him, because I was sure that he could not 
live after that he was fallen. ' ' 

Said the pastor, " The same passages were sent to me 
a little while ago, and I have had time to consider them. 
Much has been made of this seeming ' discrepancy. ' But 
a candid and fair dealing with these passages, in connec- 
tion with their context, will, I think, effect a satisfactoo^ 
reconcilement." 

Continued the pastor, "There are three steps in this 
sad tragedy. The first was the death-wounding of Saul 
by the Philistine archers : ' the archers hit him and he 
was sore wounded of the archers ' (1 Sam. 31 : 3). The 
second was his own suicidal act ; for, keenly smarting 
under the humiliation and shame of disaster and defeat, 
the Philistine arrows were not speedy enough in their 
fatal work, and so he fell upon his own sword. His 
armor-bearer, supposing his master therefore dead, took 
his own life. But this second and self-wounding seems 
not to have been immediately fatal. The third was when 
the ill-fated monarch, having regained a feeble and flick- 
ering consciousness for a moment, solicits and receives 
the finishing stroke, too long delayed, at the hands of the 
Amalekite."* 



* A singularly able and shrewd lawyer and an ex-Senator, 
who as a layman, is perhaps not surpassed by any layman as a 
Bible scholar and theologian, takes a different view of this case, 
and in a summary and interesting way removes one element cf 
the difficulty. He kindly writes the author : "As to Saul's death, 



32 Alleged Discrepancies 

"Such," the pastor went on, "are the three steps. 
Either act— that of the Philistine archer, the suicidal 
hand, or the vagrant Amalekite — would have effected 
the catastrophe, and death may fairly be said to have 
been caused by either, but the three combined simply 
brought the end quicker and nearer." 

Said Fred, enthusiastically, "I'll see him," and then, 
with a plan for another meeting, and the usual leave- 
takings, the little company separated. 

I differ with you. Your explanation does not, it seems to me, meet 
the records. The record of the case Bhows : i. That he was -on- 
wounded by the archers ; 2. That he asked his armor-bearer to kill 
him, \vh<» refused; 3 That Ik- fell on his own sword; 4 That 

when his armor-1). l^, (no Supposing about 

it,) he fell on hi- own sword and died with him. N<»u this is the 
whole record of the case. Some day* rds a wild Amale- 

kite comes to David and tells him a Btory that i- ,/ lie upon the 
as any lawyer would know the moment Ik- heard it in 
court. Tin Bible simply gives what tin- man said, hut doea not 

vouch for the truthfulness of his story, no mdre than it does for 

the truth of what the Devil - .man in the garden of 

Eden." 



of the Bible. 33 



CHAPTER VII. 



At the seventh meeting Miss Rysen was the first to pre- 
sent a Bible difficulty. Said she, " One of the members 
of my Bible class handed me a couple of passages of 
Scripture last Sunday, the disagreement between which is, 
of course, only on the surface. Our experiences here 
assure me that our pastor can easily make the underlying 
harmony to appear. The passages are :" 

Ex. 25 : 8, " And let them make me a sanctuary, that I 
may dwell among them. ' ' 

Acts 7 : 48, " Howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in 
temples made with hands." 

Said the pastor, " The statements here are not of con- 
tradictory, but of contrasted, facts. The first has refer- 
ence to God's localized manifestation in grace : in that 
sense he does dwell in every true sanctuary. The second 
refers to his illimitable and omnipresent being : in that 
sense he cannot be comprehended by a temple, for 'the 
heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain him' 
(1 K. 8:27). The two texts contrast his ineffable con- 
descension with his infinite majesty ; his gracious pres- 
ence with his people on earth, and his absolute dwelling 
place in glory. This true view point makes them per- 
fectly harmonious." 

Said Fred Leges, " I would be glad to know the solu- 
tion of the difficulty in the following two passages to 
which my attention was called by a member of the Agnos- 
tic Club: " 

2 Sam. 6 : 23, " Therefore Michal, the daughter of Saul, 
had 710 child unto the day of her death.'" 

2 Sam. 21 : 8, " The king took .... the five sons of 



34 Alleged Discrepancies 

Michal, the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for 
Adriel, the son of Bar z Mai, the Meholathite" 

Said the pastor, ' 'These texts are said to present a 'plain 
contradiction;' but I think an acquaintance with the pre- 
ceding history will entirely solve the difficulty. If you 
will follow in your Bibles, as I call your attention to the 
passages, and regard the chronology that is given at the 
top of the reference columns, the matter will, I trust, be 
made plain." 

The trio eagerly followed the passages, as the pastor 
gave them out and showed their setting. Said he, " You 
will see in i Sam. 18, that David's prowess won for 
him a wife,— not king Saul's eldest daughter, Merab, 
vs. 17, 19, as he expected, but Michal, the younger, 
instead (19 : n). This was B. C. 1063. It was probably 
the next year. B. C. [062, that Saul, fur some reason, 
took Michal away from David, and gave her ' to Phalti 
the son of Laish,' 1 Sam. 2s: } j. In B.C. 1048, David, 
by his brother-in-law, Ishbosheth, recovered his wife 
Michal, from Phalti. 2 Sam. 3 : r 5< She thus lived with 
Pnalti 14 years. Six years later, B. C. 1042, David hav- 
ing meanwhile become king, his unseemly exhibition of 
himself in dancing- before the restored Ark of the Lord, 2 
Sam. 6 : 14, 2*., brought upon him the contempt of his 
wife ; for the unwifely expression of which, there came, 
as is implied in the word ' therefore.' this judgment: 
' Therefore Michal, the daughter of Saul, had no children 
unto the day of her death.' Her non-child bearing must, 
accordingly, be reckoned from the time of David's salta- 
tory performance in B. C. [042. Of course Michal may 
have had children before this, and it is quite supoosable 
that the five sons in question were the children of Phalti, 
born during the 14 years of his life with her. While, 
therefore, the alleged contradiction thus instantly disap- 



of the Bible. 35 

pears, our supposition is made almost certain when we 
consider that in David's rendering up seven sons of the 
house of Saul for immolation, because of that king's 
crime against the Gibeonites, 2 Sam. 21 : 1-6, he would 
hardly have given his own sons, but he could fulfil the 
conditions by surrendering the five sons of Michal with 
the two sons of Rizpah, Saul's concubine, 2 Sam. 21:8. 
Thus, not only is there no contradiction, but the child- 
lessness in the one case, and the five sons in the other, 
are fully accounted for." 

Continued the pastor, " While this explanation seems 
tome to fully meet the allegation of contradiction, there 
is still another solution. It is also quite possible that ' the 
five sons of Michal, daughter of Saul, whom she brought 
up for Adriel,' were simply her foster-sons left to her for 
rearing, by her sister Merab, the wife of Adriel, 1 Sam. 
18 : 19. It is significant that some of the manuscripts 
which the Hebraist, Dr. Kennicott, had for his great 
work, Vetus Testamentum cum Varris Lectionibus, 2 
vols., as well as the Chaldee version, say : 'The five sons 
of Merab,' instead of Michal. You will recall that the 
deliverance of the Presbyterian General Assembly of 
1893, at Washington, which we had before us at our sec- 
ond meeting, holds that ' errors and mistakes of transla- 
tors, copyists and printers,' do not invalidate the inspira- 
tion of ' the very Word of God.' ' Michal ' may possibly 
be a transcriber's mistake for ' Merab.' But whether so 
or not, I think the explanation given above completely 
removes the difficulty. ' " 

Said George Argent, " Now that we are on the history 
of Saul and David, I recall that Prof. Henry Preserved 
Smith, in his Biblical Scholarship and Inspiration, p. 99, 
makes a difficulty — indeed he calls it a ' serious dis- 
crepancy ' — in 1 Samuel, chapters 16 and 17. He 



36 Alleged Discrepancies 

says, ' In one chapter he [David] is already a warrior 

when invited to the court to play before Saul In 

the other he is a stripling who comes providentially into 
camp in time to meet the giant, and appears to be 
wholly unknown to Saul 

Said the pastor, " Dean Milman exploited this dif- 
ficulty in his History of the Jews. But it seems to me that 
both he and Prof. Smith entirely miss the point. True, 
in chapter xvi., David had been Saul's harpist, and was 
able by his music to soothe to calmness the king's mental 
distresses ; he won the monarch's love and was made his 
armor-bearer (v. 21). But David went and returned 
from Saul to feed his father 's sheep at Bethlehem,' 1 
Sam. 17 : 15. The Philistines invade the land. Goliath 
!S his challenge, staking all on individual combat 
with him. Among the things Saul promises to him who 
shall kill the giant, is to ' make his fathers house free in 
Isra< ; J David a] upon the scene, 

and performs the Though at the outset Saul had 

heard who 1 - : idler was, it is Likely that in his fits 

of m en ; but. at any rate, in ful- 

filling his prom;- :i. the king must be certified 

as to who the young vict ther is. To say, as Prof. 

Smith does, that David now ' appears to be wholly 
unknown to Saul.' is entirely gratuitous. Saul's inquiry 
- simply, Whose son is this youth ? ' and he commis- 
sions his lieutenant, Ab:ier, to find out. Seeing that this 
is the point on which the inquiry turns, viz., who David's 
father is, the ' discrepancy ' disa* 

Said George Argent again, ' This history of Saul 
reminds me of still another thing. You remember that 
recently our prayer-meeting topic was ' The Rewards of 
Obedience to God,' Lk. 12: 41-4S. Studying up the 
subject beforehand, I read 1 Samuel, chapter xv., which 



of the Bible. 37 

tells of Saul's disobedience, and I found what is to me 
a grave difficulty. Here are the verses : " 

1 Sam. 15 : 29, " The Strength of Israel will not lie nor 
repent, for he is not a man that he should repent." 

1 Sam. 15 : 35, " A?id the Lord repented that he had 
made Saul king over Israel.''' 

Said the pastor, " As you all know, this is one of the 
1 tough nuts ' of exegesis ; but may be we can find a 
view-point which will relieve the difficulty. The Bible 
says that God does repent, in such passages as these : 
Gen. 6 : 6, 7 Ton which Prof. Tayler Lewis, in Lange's 
Genesis, p. 288, has an extended dissertation); Ex. 32 : 
14 ; Judges 2 : 18 ; 1 Sam. 15 : 11 ; Ps. 106 : 45 ; Heb. 7: 
21, etc. Moses prays, ' Return, O Jehovah, how long! 
— and let it repent thee concerning thy servants' (Ps. 
90: 13). Again, the Bible says that God does not 
repent, as in Numb. 23 : 19 ; Ps. no: 4 ; Jer. 4 : 28 ; 
Ezek. 24 : 14, etc. Now, both of these sets of passages 
are true if you allow, which is the fact, that the word 
' repentance ' covers different spaces of meaning. Among 
its significations are these : 1. A change of mind or pur- 
pose ; 2. Regret or sorrow for wrong done or sin com- 
mitted, involving a rectification of the wrong or forsaking 
the sin. In this second sense, man repents, but not 
God ; for he is not a man, a sinner, that he should 
repent. In the first sense, both God and men repent, 
i. e. y change their minds, and change their conduct, too. 
But you ask, 'Is not God unchangeable? ' Yes, and it is 
just because he is unchangeable that he ' repents ' ! 
The real change, however, is not in God, but in man. 
As Dr. Joseph Parker so well puts it in his discourse, in 
The City Temple, on ' Saul Rejected,' ' All the govern- 
ment of God is founded upon a moral basis : when moral 
conditions have been impaired or disturbed, God's rela- 



38 Alleged Discrepancies 

tion to the matter in question is of necessity changed ; 
and this change, justified by such reasons, could not be 
more conveniently or indeed more accurately expressed 
than by the word repentance." 

George's face brightened, and he said with consider- 
able enthusiasm, " I see it : for me the nut is cracked. 
This is simply ' differential calculus ' applied to morals. 
I remember that in that branch of mathematics in col- 
lege, quantities were divided into two kinds, ' variables ' 
and 'constants,' and, in their relations to each other, 
one might be the ' function ' of the other. Here, mans 
sin is the variable, and God's righteousness the con- 
stant ; and the functional relation requires that as sinful 
man varies in moral conditions, the unchanging God 
must necessarily follow with the constant principle of 
righteousness, and meet the changed conditions. That 
is to say, the unchangeable, righteous God must change, 
not himself, but simply his course of conduct, i 
'repent, so as righteously to fit the changed m< 
conditions ted by man. It was in fitting the condi- 

tions caused by Saul's change that God's repentance 
consisted. " 

" Pre said the pastor, "and we will thank 

Dr. Parker for solving the difficulty for us so well, 
George for illuminating it mj lustrous 



of the Bible. 39 



CHAPTER VIII. 

At the eighth meeting of the trio in the pastor's 
study, there seemed to be a bit of constraint at the out- 
set, when George Argent said to the minister, " I don't 
know but we ought to apologize for bringing so many of 
the alleged contradictions of the Bible to you for recon- 
cilement. You may think from this apparent trend of 
our minds that we are becoming skeptics. But I assure 
you we are not." 

The pastor smiled and answered, " You remember the 
passage between a tiger-hunter returned from India and 
a returned missionary, at a banquet in London. The 
hunter had shot many tigers, but had not seen a single 
convert, and therefore concluded that the alleged success 
of Christian missions was entirely fictitious : there were 
no converts in India. The missionary, thus challenged, 
replied that he had been in India many years and had 
seen a great many converts, but had never seen a single 
tiger ; whence, adopting his friend's style of reasoning, 
he ought to conclude that the tiger stories are fictions : 
no tigers are there !" 

"I have found," continued the pastor, "that people 
see just about what they have eyes to see ; they find 
what they are looking for. You, having begun with 
alleged ' discrepancies ' and familiarized your minds with 
the subject, would naturally be much more apt to see 
them than you otherwise would, especially as you have 
the assiduous assistance of the Agnostic Club. Oh, no ; 
I think you are too well ' rooted and grounded ' to be 
switched off on skeptical lines. But you are most cor- 
dially welcome to bring whatever difficulties you may 



40 Alleged Discrepancies 

find. My thought has been that you young people have 
pursued these studies somewhat for your own sakes, but 
more yet that, in your Christian work, you might become 
able to help others." 

"Correct, correct you are!" ejaculated Fred Leges. 
" But, would you deem me impertinent if I were to ask 
how it is that you are able to do what you are doing for 
us? Difficulties that we have brought — some of them 
pronounced insuperable by even theological professors — 
you have met completely." 

The pastor, disclaiming any superiority whatever, to 
any of his brethren in this matter, said, "You know the 
old saying, 'There are tricks in all trades but mine.' 
But there is no trick about this. When I was a student 
in the theological seminary, some infidel publishing 
house got hold of the seminary catalog, as I suppose, 
and sent to all of us students a pamphlet in which were 
professedly brought together all the so-called self-contra- 
dictions in the Bible. Of course I was troubled. For 
my own sake, and I am now beginning to think, as was 
said of Queen Esther's coming to the throne, ' for such 
a time as this,' I ' sat up ' with that pamphlet. But let 
us proceed." 

Miss Rysen presented a difficulty to which her atten- 
tion had been called by a member of her Bible class : 

Gen. 6 : 19, " And of every living thing of all flesh, two 
of every sort shalt thou bring i?iio the ark." 

Gen. 7:2, "Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee 
by sevens." 

Said the pastor, " The first command, to take ' two of 
ever} 7 sort,' (Heb. ' by twos,') i. e., by pairs (you observe 
nothing is said here as to how many pairs), was given 
when the command to build the ark was made ; then, 
after one hundred and twenty years, ' while the ark was 



of the Bible. 41 

a preparing ' ( 1 Pet. 3 : 20), the further command was 
given to take of clea?i beasts 'by sevens,' i. e., as Bush 
puts it, ' Three couples for breed and the odd seventh 
for sacrifice, chap. 8 : 20.' Says Lange, 'This [second] 
appointment is a special carrying out of the more uni- 
versal one, chap. 6 : 19, and is therefore wholly in corre- 
spondence with the advancing prophecy, and not in 
contradiction of it.' The difficulty has been manufac- 
tured by assuming that, in the first command, one pair 
only is intended ; whereas, as you see, the number of 
pairs is left indefinite. The second command simply 
makes definite what in the first was left indefinite. The 
two are therefore in entire harmony." 

Said Fred Leges, ' ' I have heard some rather hilarious 
and skeptical comments made on such a structure as the 
ark having room for so many animals." The pastor 
handed him Professor Howard Osgood's article on Presi- 
dent Harper's lectures on Genesis, Bibliotheca Sacra, 
April, 1895, an d he read, p. 333, "Whether the ark could 
not have contained all the animals for want of space, 
any one can decide for himself, by calculating the aver- 
age size of all animals of the land, the space required 
for them, and the size of one deck of the ark. The 
ocean steamers of the first rank could carry on one deck 
two of all land animals, birds, reptiles, insects, and seven 
each of the ten clean animals, and have plenty of space 
to spare for the crew to work the ship. Only two-thirds 
of one deck of the ark would have sufficed, by actual 
measurement of animals, for two of all land animals 
ever known on earth." 

" Speaking of animals reminds me," said Fred, "that 
at dinner yesterday our landlady said if I would kindly 
stop at the market, on my way back to the office, and 
order a half-dozen of quail sent up, we would have quail 



42 Alleged Discrepancies 

on toast for supper. As I was ordering them, the 
butcher, who is a member of the Agnostic Club, said, 
' Leges, don't you think quail must have been pretty 
cheap back in the Jew-times in the wilderness, when 
[Numb. 11:31] ' there went forth a wind from the Lord, 
and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by 
the camp, as it were a day's journey on this side, and as 
it were a day's journey on the other side, round about 
the camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face 
of the earth !' I tell you what, young man, quails lying 
for miles around this town three and a half feet deep on 
the ground would knock my business all out.' ' 

During the laugh that followed, the pastor handed to 
George Argent, who was sitting next to him, the Latin 
Vulgate, and to Miss Rysen our Revised Version. 
George read : " Volabantque in aere duobus cubitis altitu- 
dine super terram, i. e., 'and they flew in the air two 
cubits in height above the earth :' " and Miss Rysen 
read, "And about two cubits above the face of the earth." 

Said the pastor, "You see that a correct translation at 
once removes the difficulty. Josephus accordingly 
explains the passage by saying it merely means that the 
quails flew within reach of the people about two cubits 
from the ground. The birds could easily be knocked 
down with sticks 

Said George Argent, " In recent readings in the Acts 
of the Apostles I have come across something on which 
I desire help 

Acts 9:7,' 'A/id the men who journeyed with him \ Paul] 
stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing 710 man." 

Acts 22 : 9, " And they that were with me \ Paul] saw 
iiideed the light, and were afraid ; but they heard not the 
voice of him that spake to me."" 

Said the pastor, "Recent criticism has not failed to 



of the Bible. 43 

take advantage of this apparent discrepancy, and it has 
even been declared to be a 'plain contradiction.' There 
are two ways of relieving the difficulty ; one is by a 
proper understanding of the noun cfxnvy, rendered 'voice,' 
and the other by a proper understanding of the verb 
aKovo), rendered ' hear. ' 

"You will remember," continued the pastor, "that 
when we considered the word ' tempt,' at our third meet- 
ing, we saw that a word may cover different spaces of 
meaning. Looking in the Greek lexicon, you will see 
that phone means 1. A sound ; 2. A voice, i. e. y a sound 
made in a particular way ; 3. Articulated speech, words, 
i.e., that which is uttered by the voice. Thus, in the 
first case, the amazed and dazed men heard 'a voice,' i. e. y 
a sound, a noise ; and in the second case, ' they heard not 
the voice,' i.e., they heard not the articulated speech, 
the words, which fell so distinctly and intelligibly on 
Paul's quickened ear. This, you see, completely fits the 
situation. This explanation is confirmed by Jno. 12: 
28-30, when 'came there a voice from heaven ' whose 
utterance Jesus understood, but ' the people, therefore, 
that stood by and heard it, said that it thundered.' " 

"Now for the second method," said the pastor. 
" Iyook in the lexicon, and you will see that akouo means 
1. To hear, simply ; and then, among other derived or 
developed significations, 2. To understand, comprehend, 
that which is heard. Accordingly, in the first case the 
men simply heard the voice, sound, noise ; and in the 
second case, while they ' heard ' it as a sound, they did 
not ' understand ' what it articulated. In one sense they 
heard it, and yet in another sense they did not hear it. 
How often in large audiences the complaint is made that 
a speaker is not heard, i. e., his words are not understood 
though his voice is audible, easily so, for its loudness. 



44 Alleged Discrepaxcies 

Among the half-dozen or more renderings of akouo in 
the New Testament, it is translated ' understand ' in 
i Cor. 14: 2, 'For he that speaketh in an unknown 
tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God, for no 
man understandeth him.' Therefore put the word 
' understood ' in the place of ' heard ' in Acts 22 : 9, and 
all is easy. Dr. J. A. Alexander says, ' There is a dis- 
tinction between hearing a voice speak, and hearing 
what it says. . . It might be said with equal truth, 
that Paul's companions heard the voice, i. e. t knew that 
it was speaking, and that they did not hear it, i. e., did 
not know what it said.' Hither one of our solutions 
seems to me to completely resolve the difficulty." 

" So say we all," interposed Fred Leges with some 
enthusiasm, and evidently speaking for the others as 
well as himself. And he went on, "This case of hear- 
ing and yet not hearing, is akin to the difficulty in Ex. 
xxxiii., of seeing and yet not seeing God. where 'the 
Lord spake unto Moses face to face ' (v. in, and yet in 
v. 20 ' He said, thou canst not see my face, for there 
shall no man see me and live.' That has troubled me." 

Said the pastor, "The consideration of this alleged 
'discrepancy ' will take so much time, we would better 
defer it till our next meeting." 

After prayer to him who inspired the Word and caused 
it to be written, that he would illumine their minds in 
the knowledge of it, and enable them to resolve its diffi- 
culties so far as it is for them to do, and still more to 
give them visions of God himself, the little company 
separated. 



of the Bible. 45 



CHAPTER IX. 

The ninth meeting had been looked forward to with 
eager interest by the young people, for the deferred diffi- 
culty seemed to grow upon them as they thought of it. 
They judged that no more mutually contradictory scrip- 
ture terms could be found than those, for instance, in 
Ex. 24 : 11, "They saw God," and 1 Tim. 6 : 16, 
" Whom no man hath seen, nor can see." Said Fred 
Leges, as they were on their way to the Manse, " I am 
afraid the Dominie will have his hands full this time. " 
Miss Rysen quickly responded, " But we have all confi- 
dence in the bridge that has always carried us safely 
over. ' ' 

When they were assembled and ready for work, the 
pastor said, " The difficulty Mr. Leges presented, which 
was put over to be treated now, is an old acquaintance 
of mine. Indeed it was, the very first I met, of the kind 
we have been considering, for it was flared forth in star- 
ing red ink on the cover of the infidel pamphlet to which 
I referred at our last meeting. These were the two 
texts:" 

Gen. 32 : 30, " For I have seen God face to face and my 
life is preserved. ' ' 

Ex. 33 : 20, " And he said, Thou canst not see my 
face ; for there shall no ma?i see me, and live. ' ' 

Said the pastor, with some solemnity, " I feel like 
approaching this subject with unsandalled feet, as Moses 
approached the burning bush (Ex. 3 : 5). These two 
texts are only part of a number which speak of God, on 
the one hand, as not to be seen (Deut. 4:15; Jno. 
1 : J 8 ; 5 : 37 ; 1 Tim. 1 : 17, etc.) ; and, on the other, 



46 Alleged Discrepancies 

as seen (Ex. 24 : 10 ; 33 : 11; Judges 13 : 22 ; Isa. 
6:1; Rev. 22 : 4, etc.)." 

He went on : "To the question, ' Can God be seen?' 
I would answer, Let us, first of all, see just what the 
question is, or what is in it, that we may know what it 
is we are trying to answer. To illustrate : If you were 
to ask 'Did Christ die for all men?' I would reply, 
which question do you want me to answer first ? for you 
have really asked two questions. How so ? Because the 
little word 'for' is ambiguous, and has a two-fold signif- 
icance. If you mean, ' Did Christ die for all men in 
the sense of making an atonement sufficient for all men ?' 
I would answer, Yes (1 Jno. 2:2). But if you mean, 
' Did Christ die for all men in the sense of intending 
thereby to save all ?' I would as readily answer, No, for 
some will be lost (Acts 1 : 25 ; Rom. 1 : 8, 9 ; 2 Thess. 1 : 
9). So, to the question, 'Can God be seen?' I would 
reply, What God, or rather which form of God, do you 
mean ? Proper discernment just here may not only ena- 
ble us to answer the question, but also to find the com- 
plete reconcilement of these apparently contradictory 
Scripture expressions. ' ' 

The pastor continued: "A Rabbinical writer says, 
' Of that divine glory mentioned in the Scriptures, there 
are degrees which the eyes of the prophets were able to 
explore, and which all the Israelites saw, in the pillar of 
cloud and of fire ; but there is another so bright and daz- 
zling that no mortal is able to comprehend it, and should 
any one venture to look upon it his whole frame would 
be dissolved.' This second form of God is He who 
' dwelleth in the light which no man can approach unto' 
(1 Tim. 6 : 16) ; whom ' no man hath seen at any time ' 
(Jno. 1 : 18), ' nor can see ' (1 Tim. 6:16); who ' is a 
Spirit' (Jno. 4: 24), 'invisible' (1 Tim. 1:17) ; what 



of the Bible. 47 

Murphy calls 'the divine essence,' His 'direct, imme- 
diate, intrinsic Self ; who 'is a consuming fire' (Deut. 4 : 
24; Heb. 12:29). T° this form of God, or to this 
mode of the Divine Being, must be referred all those 
Scriptures which speak of Him as not to be seen. From 
this standpoint the answer to the question must be, and 
correctly, No; God cannot be seen." 

The young people had become intensely interested. 
The pastor went on : " But this is not all. The unseen 
and unseeable God has veiled himself, has clothed him- 
self with form attempered to mortal eyes. ' Thou hast 
covered Thyself with a cloud ' (Lam. 3 : 44). It was 
from the ' pillar of cloud ' that God spake to Moses and 
others 'face to face.' The Shekinah (i. e. residence) 
became the place of God's meeting his people. Still 
more: from the early church, down, with increasing 
acceptance, it has been held that the Old Testament 
appearances of Deity, the ' Angel ' visitants to patri- 
archs, judges, prophets, and others — theophanies they 
are called — were pre-incarnate manifestations of the 
Second Person of the adorable and ever blessed Trinity. 
Says Kurtz: ' The 'Angel of the Lord ' is God who mani- 
fests himself, for he identifies himself with God, ascribes 
divine power, honor, and names, to himself, accepts of 
worship and sacrifices, and is usually regarded and 
acknowledged as God by those to whom he appears. 
The 'Angel of the Lord,' appearing temporarily in a 
merely human form, is a prefiguration of the permanent 
and essential incarnation of God in Christ ' (Sacred His- 
tory, § 26, 2). Says Murphy, commenting on Ex. 23 : 
20, ' Behold, I send an Angel before thee :' 'We con- 
clude that the Angel here is God manifest in angelic 
offices to his people.' Says Bush, Commentary on 
Exodus, vol. I. p. 166 ; ' It is clear that the ' Lord,' and 



4 8 Alleged Discrepancies 

the ' Angel of the covenant ' are identical, and no one 
doubts that this is a prediction of the coming of Christ 
heralded by John the Baptist. Consequently, Christ of 
the New Testament, and the ' Angel ' or ' Jehovah ' of 
the Old, are one and the same." 

"Then," continued the pastor, "we have the New 
Testament incarnation. Says the old hymn, 
1 Till God in human flesh I see, 
My thoughts no comfort find.' 

Milton gives beautiful expression of the incarnation, 
in the beginning of Book III., Paradise Lost. 

' God is light, 
And never but in unapproached light 
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in Thee, 
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.' 
' God was manifest in the flesh ' (i Tim. 3 : 6), ' and 
we beheld his glory' (Jno. 1 : 14). It is God in this 
form 'which we have heard, which we have seen with 
our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands 
have handled' (1 Jno. 1 : 1). To this mode of the 
Divine Being, and as presented in the Old Testament the- 
ophanies, to the first form of the divine glory of which 
the Rabbinical writer speaks, must we refer all those 
passages which speak of God as seen. From this stand- 
point the answer to the question must surely be, and 
correctly, Yes ; God can be seen." 

Fred Leges, who was almost quiveringly alert, could 
not restrain himself, and he fervently said : " I see it, I 
see it. God in his essence, God who, as the Westmin- 
ster Confession of Faith says, ' is infinite in being and 
perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, 
parts or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incom- 
prehensible ' [Chap. II. 1], cannot be seen ; but God in 
manifestation, after both the Old and the New Testa- 



of the Bible. 49 

ment manner, can be seen ; in a word, God in his 'being' 
is invisible, but in his ' becoming ' (to use a bit of col- 
lege philosophical parlance) is visible ; and these two 
classes of Scripture passages, apparently so opposed to 
each other, are not contradictory, but perfectly harmon- 
ious, because they refer to two different, but harmon- 
ious, modes of the divine subsistence." 

" Well, well ! Fred," said the pastor, smiling approv- 
ingly, " I thank you for this succinct summing up of all 
I have said. You have stated the precise conclusion to 
which I intended my disquisition should come." 

After a few minutes' general conversation the pastor 
said to the young people, " Turn about is fair play : you 
have been listening to me, now let me listen to you. I 
have copied out three so called ' self-contradictions ' from 
the pamphlet referred to, and I would like to see what 
you will do with them." He handed to each a slip of 
paper, and after a few moments Miss Rysen began : 

Ex. 20 : 4, " Thou shall not make unto thee any graven 
image, or any likeness of a?iything that is in heaven above, 
or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters 
under the earth."'' 

Ex. 25 : 18, 20, " Thou shall make two cherub ims of 
gold. . . . Arid the cherubim s shall stretch forth their 
wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, 
and their faces shall look one to another. ' ' 

Said she, " I remember that when our Sunday-school 
lesson was on the Ten Commandments, it was made 
very plain that the prohibition in the first text forbade 
the making of ' any graven image,' or ' likeness,' repre- 
senting Deity, for the purpose of worship. Says the next 
verse, ' Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, etc. 
This is its limitation. Such being the case, there can be 
no contradiction between this commandment and the 



50 Alleged Discrepancies 

command to make the cherubims, which were not for 
worship, but simply to constitute a part of the covering 
of the ark, or mercy seat, where the Shekinah rested." 

George Argent's turn came next, and from his slip he 
read : 

Gal. 2 : 1 6, " Knowing that a ma?i is not justified by the 
works of the law, but by the faith of fesus Christ." 

Jas. 2 : 24, " Ye see then how that by works a ma?i is 
justified, and not by faith only." 

Said he, " Our pastor's prayer-meeting talk on justifi- 
cation, the other evening, which I trust I never shall for- 
get, made this apparent contradiction very plain. Paul's 
view-point is of that which precedes, leads up to, and 
secures justification, — ' the faith of Jesus Christ ;' while 
James' point of view is of what follows justification, — 
'works.' Believe in order to be saved, work because 
you are saved, Faith the means or instrument of justi- 
fication, works the evidence and fruit of it. I remember 
so well the sentence, ' Saved by faith alone, but not by 
a faith which is alone.' The difference in view-point 
shows there is no contradiction, but completest harmony 
instead 

Fred Leges said, " This is right in my line." He read: 

Jno. 19 : 7, " The feces answered him , \\ r e have a law, 
and by our law he ought to die." 

Jno. 18 : 31, " The Jews therefore said u?ito him, It is 
not lawful for us to put any man to death." 

He continued, " The first text states a fact of Jewish 
jurisprudence, which they were urging upon Pilate to 
induce him to put Jesus to death. The Jews were no 
longer a state, but a conquered Roman province, and the 
Romans had taken from them the power of inflicting 
capital punishment. To have inflicted the death penalty 
upon Jesus for the crime of blasphemy, as alleged, would 



of the Bible. 51 

have been lawful according to Jewish statute (Lev. 24 : 
16), but unlawful according to Roman law which was 
now in force. No contradiction here, surely." 

A look of satisfaction spread over their faces, and Fred 
said gleefully, " Oh, this is fun ! If it were not time to 
go home, I would ask our pastor to fetch on some more." 



52 



Alleged Discrepazsxies 



CHAPTER X. 

At the tenth meeting, passages of Scriptures were pre- 
sented by Miss Rysen, George Argent, and Fred Leges 
respectively, in order as follows : 

Josh. 10 : 42, " And all these kings and their land did 
Joshua take at 07ie time, because the Lord God of Israel 
fought for them. ' ' 

Josh. 11 : 18, " foshua made war a lo?ig time with all 
those kings." 

Said the pastor, 'A glance at the contexts will at 
once dissipate the apparent contradiction. ' All these 
kings and their land,' refer to the kings of Jerusalem, 
Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, Gezer, Eglon, Libnah, and 
Debir, and their principalities, mentioned in the tenth 
chapter. If you will look at a map you will see that 
they all belong to the southern part of the country. 
This is Joshua's conquest of lower Palestine, a swift, 
devastating campaign that lasted about a year." 

"The second text," said the pastor, "refers to the 
yiortheryi campaign, which lasted some five or six years. 
Understanding that the reference is to two different sec- 
tions of the country and to two different campaigns, the 
' discrepancy' at once disappears. 

The next difficulty, presented by George Argent, was 
from his old friend (?) Professor Henry Preserved Smith, 
and found in Biblical Scholarship and Inspiration, p. 104. 

2 Chron. 14 : 2-5, " And Asa did that which was good 
and right in the eyes of the Lord his God; . . . also 
he took away . . the high places. ' ' 

1 Kings 15 : 14, " But the high places were not removed; 
nevertheless Asa's heart was perfect with the Lord all his 
days." 



of the Bible. 53 

Said the pastor, "This is a 'discrepancy' for which 
Professor Smith accounts by crediting it to the 'personal 
equation' of the historian. To say, as he does, that 
these texts ' certainly look on their face like direct con- 
tradictions,' and then attempt to show that the 'look ' is 
the expression of a corresponding reality, must be due, 
it seems to me, to the personal equation of the Professor 
himself ; for he ought to know that there are high places 
and high places." 

The pastor handed George, Barrows' Sacred Geogra- 
phy and Antiquities, from which he read as follows : 
' ' This idolatrous worship on the high places must be 
carefully distinguished from the sacrifices to the true 
God which were offered on the high places by an irregu- 
larity tolerated by even the prophets, and sometimes 
commanded by God himself. 1 Sam 9:12; 16 : 2-5 ; 
1 Kings 18:31, seq.; etc." (p. 651). Fred Leges read 
from the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia, 11. p. 989, 
" Both Asa (1 Kings 15 : 14) and Jehoshaphat (1 Kings 
22 : 43) allowed some of the high places to remain (pre- 
sumably those on which sacrifice was offered to Jehovah), 
but destroyed the idolatrous shrines (2 Chron. 15 : 17, 
comp. 14 : 5 ; 20 : 33, comp. 17 : 6)." 

"Understanding," said the pastor, "that Asa took 
away the high places where idolatrous worship was 
offered, and left those where Jehovah was worshipped, 
there is no difficulty." 

Fred, as the outcome of an exchange of ideas with 
the President of the Agnostic Club, presented these 
passages : 

Matt. 10:9, 10, " Provide neither gold nor silver, ?ior 
brass for your purses, ?wr scrip for your joicrjiey, neither 
two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves ; for the 7vorkma?i 
is worthy of his meat. ' ' 



54 Alleged Discrepancies 

Mark 6 : 8, 9, "' And he commanded them that they 
should take nothi?ig for their journey, save a staff o?ily ; 
710 scrip, no bread, no money in their purse ; but be shod 
with sandals, a?id ?iot put on two coats." 

Lk. 9 : 3, "And he said unto them, Take ?iothi?ig for 
your journey, neither staves . nor scrip , neither bread, neither 
money ; ?ieither have two coats apiece." 

Said the pastor, " There are accounted to be two ' dis- 
crepancies' here ; one in regard to the foot-gear, and the 
other in regard to the walking-stick. While Mark bids 
to go ' shod with sandals,' Matthew forbids 'shoes ;' and 
while Mark allows a ' staff, ' Matthew and Luke are 
thought to deny the use of any. - ' 

"'This." he continued, ''looks rather formidable at 
first glance : but a more searching inspection may see it 
to be quite innocent. Here is a fine case for the appli- 
cation of the principle I gave you at our third meeting : 
Of cen strict attention to the precise language will resolve 
mauy an apparent difficulty ; a principle which you 
applied so successfully to the difference of numbers in 
Jacob's family in Egypt." 

" Note,'' said he, " the difference between the words 
'sandal' and 'shoe.' Mark's sandalion, according to 
Robinson's New Testament Lexicon, is a 'sole of wood 
or hide, covering the bottom of the foot, and bound on 
with thongs. Mk. 6:9; Acts 12:8 '' — (the only places, 
by the way, where this word occurs in the New Testa- 
ment). Matthew's upodema ' In later usage is put for 
the Roman calceus or shoe which covered the whole foot,' 
says Robinson, and he cites Matt. 10: 10, as an instance. 
Accordingly. Home says, 'Our Saviour ordered them to 
make no provision for their present journey, particularly 
not to take shoes on their feet, but to be shod with san- 
dals' [Introduction, 11., p. 124]. And Farrar says, 



of the Bible. 55 

'They were to take . . no traveling shoes in place of 
their ordinary palm-bark sandals' [Life of Christ, 1., p. 
363]. Thus, you see that Mark was speaking of one 
article of foot-wear and Matthew of altogether another ; 
hence there is no 'discrepancy.' " 

"As to the walking-stick," said the pastor, "Mark 
allows a 'staff,' while Matthew's and Luke's inhibition 
is of 'staves,' a plurality; i.e., they forbid more than 
one. Where is the disagreement, pray tell? Accord- 
ingly, Home says \ibid\ 'So necessary in these countries 
was a staff or walking-stick on a journey, that it was a 
usual thing for persons when they undertook long jour- 
neys to take a spare staff with them, for fear one should 
fail. When Christ, therefore, sent his apostles on the 
embassy above mentioned, he ordered them not to take 
staves (Lk. 9:3; Mk. 6:8), that is, only one staff or 
walking stick, without making provision of a spare one, 
as was common in long journeys.' : 

Fred Leges' legal eye had a cross-examination twinkle 
in it as he held up the Revised Version and said, "I 
notice that in Luke 9 : 3 the Revisers have changed the 
plural to the singular, and read ' staff ' instead of 
'staves.' " 

"Yes," said the pastor, " I know they have made this 
change ; and they have made the same in Matt. 10 : 10. 
But if you will turn to Godet's Commentary on Luke, 
where he sifts this critical question, you will see that the 
reasons for this change are by no means decisive ; and I 
therefore hold to the Authorized Version." 

" But," he continued, " even adopting the new read- 
ing, the difficulty is not insurmountable. Farrar, accept- 
ing it, puts the emphasis strongly on Matthew's 'provide 
neither,' and says, 'They were not even to procure a 
staff for the journey if they did not happen already to 



56 Alleged Discrepancies 

possess one :' 'do not procure for the purposes of this 
journey' [ibid]. Haley remarks, 'When we observe that 
Matthew uses the term 'provide,' it is clear that his 
meaning is : Do not procure any in addition to what 
you now have. Go just as you are.' And Barnes, 
from the standpoint of the new reading says, 'They were 
to go just as they were, to trust to Providence, and not 
to spend any time in making preparation for the jour- 
ney. Some of them, probably, when he addressed them 
had staves, and some had not. To those who had, he 
did not say that they should throw them away, as the 
instruction he was giving might seem to require, but 
suffered them to take them ( Mark). To those who had 
not, he said they should not spend time in procuring 
them (Matthew), but all go just as they were.' And to 
this, by putting the emphasis on the first word, the 
Revision quite agrees : ' Get you no gold, nor silver, 
. . . nor staff.' M 

" Insurmountable !" ejaculated Fred. " I should say 
not ! The heaven-high, unscalable mountain of the 
President of the Agnostic Club is not even a respectable 
molehill. I will see that gentleman later ! M 



of the Bible. 57 



CHAPTER XI. 

At this meeting the first difficulty was presented by 
Miss Rysen, one that had been brought up in her Bible 
class. 

Phil. 2:6, " Who {Christ Jesus] being in the form of 
God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God." 

Jno. 14 : 28, " My Father is greater than /." 

Said the pastor : ' ' The apparent incompatibility 
between these texts will be completely reconciled when 
you consider the differences in the condition and time to 
which they refer. The first refers back to the condition 
and time of Christ's absolute and essential equality in 
the Godhead, in the pre-historic period, before there was 
any manifestation, so far as we know, of the personali- 
ties of the adorable Trinity ; the second refers to the 
condition and time of Christ's earthly mission as Mes- 
siah, — to hisKenosis, as the theologians term it, i. e. f his 
self-emptying and self- limitation in becoming incarnate, 
the word being derived from the verb in the phrase 
translated ' made himself of no reputation ' (Phil. 2:7), 
and which the Revisers translated 'emptied himself.' 
In his office as Messiah he voluntarily assumed a subor- 
dinate position, which I suppose he will hold all through 
the Messianic period, until ' cometh the end when he 
shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the 
Father ' (1 Cor. 15 : 24). In the first state he is ' equal 
with God ;' in the second and different state, the Father 
is officially ' greater ' than the son. The difficulty thus 
disappears." 

''That which removes this difficulty," continued the 
pastor, "removes also the difficulty connected with all 



5 8 Alleged Discrepancies 

those passages which seem to imply Christ's inferiority 
to the Father, such as Mark 13 : 32, 'Of that day and 
hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in 
heaven, neither the Son, but the Father ;' Matt. 20 : 23, 
etc. This inferiority is simply official, and belongs to 
this time of his humiliation (Phil. 2:8; Acts 8 : 33)." 
"Regarding the difference in time," the pastor went 
on, "will also remove the seeming inconsistency that 
has been pointed out between Gen. 1 : 31 and Rom. 8 : 
22. The texts are : 

"Gen. 1:31, ' And God saw everythi?ig that he had 
made, and, behold, it was very good: 

" Rom. 8 : 22, ' For we know that the whole creation 
groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.' 

" The first refers to creation in its purity, before sin 
had entered in : the second, to the time after the blight 
and curse of sin had fallen upon it." 

George Argent and Fred Leges each handed the pas- 
tor two slips of paper with texts written on them, which 
were considered as follows : 

Luke 2 : 14, " Glory to God in the highest, and on 
earth peace, goodwill towards men" 

Matt. 10 : 34, " Think not that I am come to se?id peace 
on earth. I came not to send peace but a sword" 

Said the pastor : " If both these passages expressed an 
intent, or both expressed an effect, there would be a real 
discrepancy between them ; but they do not. The dif- 
ference between intent and effect is just the difference 
between them, and a recognition of this difference solves 
the difficulty." 

He continued :" An intent may be good and legiti- 
mately be productive of only good ; but, because of the 
intervening of untoward conditions in the realm in 
which it works itself out, ill may be the result, the fault 



OF THK BlBLK. 59 

being not in the intent but in the untoward conditions. 
The divine intent of Christ's coming to earth was peace, 
and, having free course to work itself out, it produces 
only peace, the ' peace of them that make peace ' (Jas. 
3:18); but instead of having that effect always and 
everywhere, the wickedness of men make it a ' sword.' 
What Christ intended for good, men have wickedly 
turned to evil effect, even as they have ' changed the 
truth of God into a lie ' (Rom. 1 : 25)." 

Matt. 23 : 9, " Call no man your father upon the earth; 
for one is your Father, which is in heaven." 

IyUke 15 : 18, " 1 will arise and go to my father, and 
will say unto him, ' Father,' " etc. 

Said the pastor: "The difference in view-point will 
show the consistency of these texts. The first is from 
the view-point of the spirit ; the second, from the view- 
point of the flesh. In the realm of grace, spiritually, 
only God can be our father, and therefore in that high 
sense no one else should be called our father ; but ' we 
had fathers of our flesh ' (Heb. 12:9), and in this lower 
realm the relation does not conflict with that in the 
higher." 

Prov. 8 : 17. " I love them that love me ; a?id those that 
seek me early shall find me. ' ' 

Prov. 1 : 28, <( Then shall they call upon me, but I will 
not answer ; they shall seek me early, but they shall not 
find me." 

" These texts," said the pastor, " undoubtedly refer to 
two different classes of persons. The first class is of 
those who have ears attentive to wisdom's cry, and 
hearts receptive of wisdom's proffers. If they seek the 
God of wisdom early, — early in life's years, early when 
opportunities present themselves, early in the efforts 
for life's acquisitions, they shall find him. The other 



60 Alleged Discrepancies 

class is of those who turn away from wisdom's voice, who 
set counsel at nought, despise reproof, hate knowledge, 
and persistently, utterly, disregard God. Judgment 
comes upon them, — desolation, distress, anguish, destruc- 
tion (Prov. i : 27). They have ' sinned away the day of 
grace,' as the phrase is. In retribution's dire hour, 
1 then,' they shall seek and shall not find : it is too late. 
When they could, they wouldn't ; when they would, 
they couldn't. The difference between the classes thus 
relieves these texts of all conflict." 

Luke 14 : 26, " If any man come to me, a?id hate not his 
father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, 
and sisters, yea, a?id his own life also, he cannot be my 
disciple. ' ' 

Eph. 5 : 25, 28, 29, ii Husba?ids, love your wives. Soought 
men to love their wives as their own bodies ; no man ever 
yet hated his own flesh." 

Said the pastor : " It is easy to see that words expres- 
sive of the affections have different degrees of meaning. 
As there are different degrees of hatred, so there are 
different degrees of love ; and these different degrees of 
love may need to be expressed by terms that shall differ- 
entiate them. If a high degree be called 'love,' some 
lower degree might, in comparison or contrast, be 
spoken of as c hate.' Thus, Bush, commenting on Gen. 
29: 31, ' Leah was hated,' says, ' That is, loved less. The 
expression is not absolute, but comparative.' Professor 
Moses Stuart says, ' When the Hebrews compared a 
stronger affection with a weaker one, they called the 
first love, and the other hatred.' " 

There were lying on the pastor's study table three New 
Testament Greek lexicons. Fred Leges picked up one of 
them, and, turning to the verb miseo which Christ uses 
in Luke 14 : 26 and which is translated hate, read these 



OF THE BlBIvK. 6l 

definitions : to regard with less affection, love less, esteem 
less. The pastor said that the other lexicons also give 
the definition, love less. 

The pastor went on to say: "The fact that Christ 
speaks of one hating his own life, clearly indicates that 
the word is to be taken in its comparative or relative 
sense. He that loves father, mother, son, daughter, 
more than Christ is not worthy of him (Matt 10 : 37) ; 
nor is one who loves his own life more than Christ 
worthy of him. So if any man come to him and do not 
put his father, mother, wife, children, brethren, sisters, 
yea, and his own life, below Christ in his heart, love them 
less, he cannot be Christ's disciple. The Son of God must 
have the very supremest place in the affections. With 
this correct understanding of the divinely imposed con- 
ditions of discipleship, the difficulty vanishes." 



62 Alleged Discrepancies 



CHAPTER XII. 

At this meeting Miss Rysen presented the first subject 
for consideration. Said she: "One of my Bible class 
scholars brought up the question of there being light 
before the sun. According to Gen. i : 3-5, light was 
spoken into visibility on the first creative day, while the 
sun did not appear until the fourth (Gen. 1 : 14-19). 
There is, therefore, a discrepancy between the fact that 
light appeared on the first creative day, and the common 
conception of the sun as the source of light, which did 
not appear until the fourth creative da} 7 -." 

Said- the pastor: "Perhaps you are speaking better 
than you are fully aware when you say that the discre- 
pancy is between the ' fact ' and ( the common concep- 
tion.' The difficulty lies in the assumption that there 
could not have been light without the sun. According 
to the theory of Pythagoras and Newton, light was a 
distinct element, an attenuated, imponderable substance, 
which, by its emission from the sun, produced the phe- 
nomenon, and by its impact upon the eye produced the 
sensation, of what we call light. This is known as the 
emission or corpuscular theory. Then came the nebular 
hypothesis of creation of LaPlace, and the undulatory 
theory of light, according to which light is believed to 
be simply a mode or condition of something, being pro- 
duced by vibrations or waves in what is called 'ether.' " 

At this point George Argent interposed : "Oh, yes, I 
recall that in your sermon last Sunday on ' The Light 
of the World,' you showed us that these waves, in one 
mode, produced heat ; in another mode, light, and if of 
different degrees of rapidity, the different colors resulted. 



of the Bible. 63 

And I remember with what force your lesson came to 
me, that as physical light is due to activity in the subtle, 
ethereal entity, so our spiritual light-shining is effected 
by our activity, our good works, seen by men, as Christ 
taught in Matt. 5 : 16." 

The pastor continued : " There is no need for us to 
enter into a consideration of the difference between the 
verbs bara, create, in v. 1, and asak, made, in vs. 7 
and 16 ; nor the light words, or, in vs. 3, 4, 5 and 
maor, in vs. 14, 15, 16. Science has come to the vin- 
dication of the Genesis-record as against the ' common 
conception.' The fact is, light, so far from being derived 
solely from the sun or stars, exists in, and can be educed 
from, almost any known substance. The surface of our 
earth may early have been a source of light even as it 
now is near the poles, flashing its aurora borealis and 
aurora australis, which, according to an Annual of Scien- 
tific Discovery, are claimed to be a telluric phenomenon, " 

The pastor handed to George Argent, L. F. March 
Phillips' lectures on the "Cumulative Evidences of 
Divine Revelation," and directing him to the last para- 
graph of the fifth lecture, he read as follows : "It was 
always a difficulty in this account of the Creation, that 
it represented light as being created before the sun and 
the stars, which are to us our only sources of light. 
Now Science tells us it is not the sun that brought light 
and heat, but the energy of which light and heat are 
modes formed the sun. In short, had the writer of the 
first chapter of Genesis placed the sun first, as any man 
writing the history out of his own experience and judg- 
ment almost certainly would have done, he would have 
been contradicted by that Modern Science which now, in 
this particular at least, confirms his account." 

"Ah," said Fred Leges, "how came Moses to antici- 



64 Alleged Discrepancies 

pate the findings of modern science ? He knew nothing 
of the nebular hypothesis, or the undulatory theory ; or 
the difference between cosmical light and solar light. If 
Genesis were simply the human production that so many 
of the critics make it out to be, its record would be in 
accord with the ' common conception,' as Miss Rysen 
terms it. But, instead, it anticipates and teaches the 
scientists of this latest century. Indeed a Divine Inspi- 
ration must be in it. The ' discrepancy ' is not in Gen- 
esis, but is of ignorant human generation." 

Said George Argent : " Xow that we have light ' on 
this subject, I wish our pastor would make as luminous 
the dark problem of God's hardening Pharaoh's heart." 

Said the pastor, thus appealed to : " Perhaps I can't. 
Nevertheless, I am willing to try to give you the relief 
that I myself have found, which is to the extent that I 
have no more trouble with the problem. " 

With this encouragement, George's face brightened. 
As with one impulse they all opened their Bibles. 

Said the pastor : " Will you please read in turn, as I 
announce them, the passages where the ' hardening' is 
spoken of?" So the trio read, alternately, Ex. 4:21; 
7 : 2 . 3 ; 7 : 13 J 7 : 14 : 1 ■ 22 \ 8:15; 8:19; 8 : 32 ; 9 : 
7 ; 9 : 11, 12 ; 9 : 34 ; 9 : 35 ; 10 : 1 ; 10 : 20 ; 10 : 27 ; 
11:10; 14:4; 14: 8 and 14 : 17. 

" Hold on," said Fred Leges, " I have been keeping 
tab on this thing. Out of these nineteen instances, 
eleven times God is said to have done the hardening ; 
three times Pharaoh is said to have done it ; and five 
times it is simply announced as having been done." 

"That is good," said the pastor, " and it will help us. 
Now, please observe, after God begins his personal deal- 
ings with Pharaoh in sending the plagues, not once is 
it said that God hardened his heart, until after the sixth 



OF THE BlBLK. 65 

plague (9 : 11, 12). Up to this point the king is said to 
have hardened his own heart. It is plain, therefore, 
that there was no irresistible omnipotence, no inscrut- 
able divine decree, no implacable purpose, bearing down 
upon him to make him go against his will, but uncon- 
strainedly and freely he resisted the command of God to 
let his people go. After this, in seven out of the eight final 
instances, it is stated that God did the hardening. How 
was it done ? " 

"It is interesting to note," he went on, "that the 
word ' harden ' translates three different Hebrew verbs. 
They are kashah, hazak and kabad ; and in these nine- 
teen passages, the first is used once, the second thirteen 
times, and the third five times. We have all three in 
Ex. vii. Kashah (7 : 3) means to make hard in the 
sense of difficult, intractable, stiff ; and, when applied 
to the heart, means obdurate, steeled against every 
tender or unselfish feeling. Hazak (7:13) means to 
strengthen, confirm, embolden ; and, applied to the 
heart, signifies determined, obstinate, inflexible in its 
own selfish purpose. Kabad (7 : 14) means to make 
heavy ; and in its heart application, stupid and insensi- 
ble to reason and the real state of things. In v. 3 the 
verb is used of God, — 'I will harden Pharaoh's heart ;' 
but according to Young's Concordance this verb is in 
the fifth Hebrew conjugation and means ' to cause to 
harden.' By what instrumentality or method, subse- 
quent events must show. In v. 13, according to the 
Revision, the verb is used indeterminately, — 'Pharaoh's 
heart was hardened.' In v. 14 we have the result, — 
'Pharaoh's heart is stubborn' (Rev.)." 

The young people, with Bible in hand, had been fol- 
lowing this disquisition intently, and fresh interest was 
awakened, like adding fuel to a flame, when the pastor 



66 Alleged Discrepancies 

said, "Now we are ready for the question, How was 
Pharaoh's heart hardened ?" 

He went on to say : "Did God by some personal impact 
on Pharaoh's mind, by some subjugating control of his 
faculties, harden him ? No, no ; that is not the way God 
deals with men. Speaking of God hardening Pharaoh's 
heart, and Pharaoh hardening his own heart, Gibson, in 
his ' The Mosaic Era,' admirably says : 

' The two things are really identical ; and the explan- 
ation, we believe, is to be found in this, that Pharaoh, 
by his conduct, put himself under the operation of the 
invariable law, according to which a man's heart becomes 
harder, the longer he resists Divine mercy and grace. 
Inasmuch as Pharaoh himself resisted, he hardened his 
own heart. Inasmuch as the law, under which he 
brought himself, was God's law, God hardened his 
heart. It is the same process viewed from its two sides. 
It is a great mistake to suppose that God singled out 
Pharaoh, or that he ever singles out anyone, and says, 
'I will harden his heart,' and then proceeds to doit. 
The supposition is monstrous. But the solemn truth is 
this, that by the operation of that well-known law, 
according to which the soul becomes less and less sus- 
ceptible to impressions which have been resisted, God 
hardens the heart of every man and woman that does 
not yield to Him ' (p. 44). 

And Murphy finely says : ' The very patience and 
moderation which were calculated to subdue a will 
amenable to reason, only aroused the resistance of 
Pharaoh. Every succeeding step in the procedure of 
God is dictated by a like consideration and forbearance. 
Though it be true, therefore, that God did harden Pha- 
raoh's heart, yet it was by measures that would have 
disarmed the opposition and commanded the acquiescence 
of an upright mind' " (Com. on Ex. p. 74). 



of the Bible. 67 

Fred was on the qui vive, but George got in his word 
ahead of him : " I don't know how it is with you others, 
but I have got the illumination on the dark problem that 
I wanted. The freedom and the responsibility, and con- 
sequently the hardening, were Pharaoh's own ; and the 
hardening came in accordance with the general, benefi- 
cent, psychological law of God by which a man's heart 
naturally softens or hardens towards God according to 
its attitude towards Him : softens if it be that of loving 
acquiescence, hardens if it be that of hating resistance. 
The law is 'holy, just and good,' and the wrong only 
and entirely with man. Pharaoh's wicked perverseness 
at length indurated his heart beyond the capability of 
recognizing or profiting by God's patient forbearance, 
and so it was but fitting and just that judgment should 
fall upon him as it did. ' Shall not the judge of all the 
earth do right?' " 

A sort of solemn hush seemed to fall on the little 
group as George slowly uttered his last sentence ; but 
the irrepressible Fred quickly rallied and said, "It is my 
turn now." With rising gleefulness he went on : "Yes- 
terday the president of the Agnostic Club came up into 
the office, and I saw he was ' loaded' for something. 
Said he : ' My festive and pious young scion of human 
and divine law, do you like Belgian hare meat?" I 
couldn't imagine what was coming, but I replied : "We 
had some up at our boarding-house to day, and I thought 
it fine. ' Well do you know,' said he, ' that according 
to the Mosaic dietetic laws in Lev. 11 : 6, a hare is 
unclean and so not fit to eat ? It reads : ''And the hare, 
because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof } he is 
unclean unto you." But then, as Moses made a mistake 
in regard to the hare chewing the cud, maybe the rest 
doesn't count.' " 



68 Alleged Discrepancies 

Fred continued : "I bridled up with, How do you 
know Moses made a mistake ? 'Well, well, sonny, I see 
I must take your 'eddication ' still further in hand,' he 
said exasperatingly. 'I've tried to bring you up right. 
Attention. It is a first-class physiological or anatomical 
fact that ruminant animals, cud chewers, have four 
stomachs. The first, the rumen or paunch, receives the 
coarse food, where it undergoes a softening process ; 
then it passes into the second stomach, the reticulum, 
the honeycomb-like arrangement of whose mucous mem- 
brane rolls it up into balls, which, by a spasmodic action, 
are regurgitated, one by one, into the mouth for com- 
plete mastication. That is, 'chewing the cud.' The 
food masticated, it is swallowed into the third stomach, 
the many plies or omasum, from which, after some tritu- 
ration, it filters into the fourth stomach, the abomasum, 
for perfect digestion. See? Now, it is another first- 
class fact that the hare hasn't any such quadri-stomachic 
aggregation, and therefore cannot chew the cud. That 
Moses made a mistake — quod demonstrationib — what d'ye 
call it?'" 

Fred went on : "I said hotly, why, I have seen hares 
chew the cud many a time. Cowper, the poet, tells of 
his favorite hare, Puss, which he often carried into the 
garden where 'she hid herself, generally under the 
leaves of a cucumber vine, sleeping or chewing the cud 
till evening,' and when the little fellow died he wrote an 
'Epitaph on a Hare,' of eleven stanzas. 'All I've got 
to say is,' replied the Agnostic, ' that you and that other 
heavenly minded chap are simply mistaken. Hares are 
rodents, gnawers, and the appearance of chewing the 
cud is only their grinding their teeth together, after the 
manner of rodents, to wear down their rapid growth, so 
naturalists say.' " 



of the Bible. 69 

The little company was convulsed with laughter over 
Fred's somewhat dramatic recital. The trio turned 
their eyes to the pastor. 

He straightened out his face and said, "Oh, that diffi- 
culty is an old acquaintance of mine. Several years ago 
a publisher sent a work to me for review, in which a 
theological professor took very much this position of the 
Agnostic, but of course not in the Agnostic's coarse 
style. I said to myself, If the Bible tells lies about 
hares, how can we know that it tells the truth about 
heaven ? A boy over on the far side of the town kept a 
rabbitry. I visited the place and said to him : Do rab- 
bits chew the cud ? He said 'yes.' Are you sure ? He 
was very positive. I offered him fifty cents if he would 
prove it to me. We went to the pen, and there the little 
fellows, after a hearty meal of clover, were chewing 
away as for dear life. My offered half-dollar did not 
procure just the evidence I wanted. Said I to the lad : 
You catch a rabbit by the throat, squeeze it so tight he 
cannot swallow, get the cud out of his mouth, and I 
will give you five dollars for it. He did not win the 
money. Some subsequent dissections did not confirm 
the boy's or Cowper's assertions." 

" What !" exclaimed Miss Rysen, " is it so, that hares 
do not chew the cud ?' ' 

"I am afraid not," said the pastor, "I am afraid not." 

11 Well," said L,eges and Argent together, "how did 
you come out ?" 

" I used my common sense," said the pastor. " It is 
well known that modern scientific knowledge of ancient 
natural history is in a very unsatisfactory state. For 
instance, take the animal whose skins were used in mak- 
ing a covering for the tabernacle, Ex. 26 : 14, — 'badgers' 
skin.' Says Murphy, 'The tachash is variously con- 



7o 



Alleged Discrepancies 



jectured to be the badger, the seal, the dolphin, and the 
tacasse, a species of antelope found in Africa. ' So high 
an authority as Dr. Edward Robinson would render it 
dugong, a swimming animal known in the waters of 
Arabia. Take again, for instance, the word yemzn, in 
Gen. 36 : 24, used but this once : 'Anah found the mules 
in the wilderness.' But the Revisers translate it, 'Anah 
found the hot springs in the wilderness ! Quite a differ- 
ence between mules and hot springs ! The old transla- 
tors did the best they knew when they translated it 
'mules ;' but they didn't know. So the arnebeth in Lev. 
11:6, and in the parallel passage, Deut. 14 : 7, rendered 
'hare.' There is practically but one occurrence of it, — 
a small foundation to build on. The translators, in 
their little knowledge, or lack of knowledge, said 'hare' 
which is an animal that does not chew the cud. But 
Moses said the arnebeth did chew the cud. Shall we set 
up the ignorance of elapsed centuries against the knowl- 
edge of one then present on the ground? The easy and 
coramonsense solution of the difficulty is simply this : 
the arnebeth was an animal known in Moses 1 time to 
chew the cud, but which we in our ignorance, have not 
been able to correctly identify, and have no means of 
identifying. I can hardly assent to Moses' knowledge 
being overthrown by modern ignorance. The mistake 
must be in modern men and not in the ancient Moses. 
That is the conclusion that I came out with, which sat- 
isfies me." 

" So it does us," the trio agreed, and with the added 
knowledge of the evening they went their homeward way. 



of the Bible. 71 



CHAPTER XIII. 

At this meeting chronological and other difficulties 
were considered. 

Gen. 15 : 13, "And he said unto Abram, know of a 
surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not 
theirs, and shall serve them ; and they shall afflict them 
four hundred years. ' ' 

Ex. 12:40, "Now the sojourning of the children of 
Israel, who dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty 
years. ' ' 

Gal. 3:17, " And this I say, ihat the covenant that was 
confirmed before of God and Christ, the law, which was four 
hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it 
should make the promise of none effect. ' ' 

Said the pastor: ' 'The difficult questions of chronology, 
on which so many good and able men differ, may well be 
approached by us with modesty." 

He then went on to say : " Isaac was born in the 25th 
year of Abraham's sojourn in Canaan (Gen. 12 : 4; 21 : 5); 
Jacob was born in Isaac's 60th year (Gen. 25 : 26), and 
was 130 years old when he descended into Egypt (Gen. 
47 rg). Adding these three numbers, 25, 60, and 130 
together we have 215 years." 

" Now," he asked, "what shall we do with them?" 

He answered : ' 'Evidently they do not belong to the 
in-Egypt period. If we regard the 430 years of Gal. 
3 : 17 as beginning with the call of Abraham, then we 
shall need to subtract them from 430, which would leave 
but 215 years for the residence in Egypt ; and this is 
what many do, — as Ussher, Hales, Poole in Smith's 
Bible Dictionary, Brown in his Ordo Saeculorum, Ben- 



72 Alleged Discrepancies 

gel, Baumgarten, Wordsworth, Murphy, Bush, Jacobus, 
etc., etc. If, however, we assume (which is the point 
in question) that the residence in Egypt was 430 years, 
we shall need to add the 215 years, which would make 
645 years from the call of Abraham to the Exodus ; and 
this is what many do, — as Kurtz, Delitzsch, Ewald, 
Keil, Morehead, etc., etc. You will remember that in 
our Normal class, following the chronology in the mar- 
gin of our Bibles, as well as in the text-book we used, 
we found the call of Abraham to have been B. C. 192 1, 
and the Exodus B. C. 1491, the difference between 
which two dates is 430 years, and not 645. We, there- 
fore, to be consistent, must side with those who subtract, 
and thus make the Egyptian residence 215 years." 

Said George Argent, who held in his hand the Revised 
version, "The rendering here is against us." 

''Yes," said the pastor, "if we adopt the Revised 
version's rendering of Ex. 12 : 40, ' The sojourning of 
the children of Israel which they sojourned in Egypt was 
430 years,' we must give up our view, for it settles the 
question against us ; but if, on the other hand, we accept 
the rendering of the authorized version, 'The sojourn- 
ing of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was 
430 years,' our view may stand, and the 'sojourning' 
would cover the whole period, as manifestly it may, 
from the call of Abraham to the Exodus, i. e., from B. C. 
1921 to B. C. 1491, or 430 years, 215 of which were 
spent in Egpyt. 'Who' or which' is the question." 

"I plainly see the difference," said George, "but 
which relative pronoun shall we adopt?" 

In reply the pastor read from Murphy's Commentary 
on Exodus, p. 114, (Andover edition,) that author's five 
reasons in favor of the 'who' rendering of the authorized 
version, which seem conclusive as against the 'which' 
rendering of the Revised version. 



of the Bible. 73 

Fred Leges had quietly taken the Septuagint, and, 
having turned to Ex. 12 '.40 said, "The Greek relative 
pronoun here is 'which' and not 'who !' " 

The faces of the others brightened as the combat 
seemed to deepen. At the pastor's suggestion that he 
read on, a queer look came into his eyes as he ejaculated, 
"Whew ! here's ago!" and he read, " 'The sojourning 
of the sons of Israel, which they sojourned in the land of 
Egypt and in the land of Canaan was 430 years.' " That's 
a clincher !" he meekly added. 

A hearty laugh followed, and Miss Rysen added, "I 
think the old version is good enough for us." 

"But," said George Argent, "we have another num- 
ber to deal with, Gen. 15 : 13, where Abram's 'seed' were 
to be strangers in a land, and afflicted, 400 years." 

Said the pastor : "Note the word 'seed.' This period 
of course could not begin until a 'seed' was born to 
Abram. The beginning of his covenant posterity was 
the birth of Isaac, which as we have seen took place in 
the 25th year of Abram's sojourn in Canaan. Now, 
when did the affliction of the 'seed' begin? The first 
fact of this nature to which we can point is the mocking 
of Isaac by Ishmael (Gen. 21 : 9), which was sufficiently 
grievous to disrupt Abraham's household. This occurred 
at the feast made in honor of Isaac's weaning. As is 
well known, the period of nursing was much longer in 
the East than obtains with us. When Samuel was 
weaned, he was old enough to be left with Eli for the 
service of the tabernacle (1 Sam. 1 : 22-25). From Lev. 
27 : 6, the age would appear to be 5 years. Accepting 
this age for Isaac, then adding 5 years to the 25 which 
intervene between his birth and the call of his father 
Abraham, we would have 30 years, which subtracted 
from the whole sojourning of 430 years, would leave 
400, precisely the time stated." 



74 Alleged Discrepancies 

Said George Argent in surprise, ''How these things 
fit!" And he added, "It looks to me as though evidence 
for verbal inspiration is piling up fast. But how about 
the 'affliction ' for 400 years?" 

Said the pastor: "The land of Canaan was promised 
to the 'seed' for a possession, Gen. 17:8; Ps. 105 : 9-12. 
You remember that Joseph though at the very summit 
of worldly honor, prosperity and comfort, in Egypt, 
nevertheless designated it as 'the land of my affliction' 
(Gen. 41 152). If that were such to him, how much 
more was it an affliction to the children of Israel that 
they were kept out of their possession 400 years, 
'sojourning in the land of promise as in a strange land' 
(Heb. 11 :6)." 

Then, said George Argent, " There is another diffi- 
culty connected with the history of Abraham which is 
raised in Stephen's Speech in Acts vii. I would like to 
have this solved." 

Acts 7 : 16, " The sepulchre that Abraham bought for a 
sum of money of the sons of Emmor the father of Sychem. ' ' 

Josh. 24 : 32, " The parcel of ground which facob bought 
of the so?is of If amor, the father of Shechem." 

Said the pastor : " This purchase is ascribed to Jacob 
also in Gen. 33 : 18, 19." 

" The difficulty is quickly met by allowing, as Meyer 
and others do, that Stephen made a mistake ! And it is 
surprising how many ' up-to-date ' exegetes hasten to 
charge upon him an historical error." 

"But J. A. Alexander well says : ' While it is easy 
to cut the knot by assuming a mistake on Stephen's 
part, it is not so easy to account for its being made by 
such a man, addressing such an audience, and then per- 
petuated in such a history, without correction or expos- 
ure, for a course of ages.' " 



ZTT- ~ 



of the Bible. 75 

" And quite as pertinent are the words of Dr. Ormis- 
ton, editor of the American edition of Meyer on Acts : 
'Surely in any view of the case it is rash to assume that 
men of average culture and information, not to say such 
men of education and intelligence as Stephen and Luke 
unquestionably were, would be ignorant of the facts 
recorded in the sacred books which had been their con- 
stant study. Nor need we suppose a speaker or writer 
likely to make erroneous statements, which a reference 
to the book of Genesis would at once have corrected, or 
to which even the audience addressed would have at once 
objected ' " (p. 161). 

The pastor continued : " It may be that there are 
missing links which, if supplied, would make all plain. 
Let us see : 

" Philo Judaeus was born 20 B. C, and Josephus 37 
B. C. Both were cotemporaries of Stephen. In the 
International Revision Commentary, edited by Dr. Philip 
Schaff, it is pointed out that in several instances these 
cotemporary writers, ' when relating the same event, 
make the same apparent mistake as Stephen, clearly 
showing that at that time there was a popular account, 
written or unwritten, of the history of Israel, differing 
apparently in a few unimportant details from the Old 
Testament story ' " (p. 79). 

He went on : " With this hint in mind, the solution 
of the difficulty is not far to seek : 

' ' This plot of ground is memorable for other reasons 
than because, according to Acts 7:16 and Josh. 24 : 32, 
it was a burial place. It was there that Jacob ' erected 
an altar, and called it Elelohe-Israel' (Gen. 33 : 20). 
Before, however, he performed his religious service, he 
found it necessary to obtain title to the land, and he 
therefore bought it for ' an hundred pieces of money y 



76 Alleged Discrepancies 

(Gen. 33 : 19). But 185 years prior to that time, Abra- 
ham performed the same service upon the very same spot 
(Gen. 12 : 6, 7); and here was the first altar he erected 
in the promised land. Can we suppose that Abraham 
performed such a service, celebrating so important an 
event as taking possession of his promised inheritance, 
without purchasing the ground on which his altar stood? 
Although in subsequent years, because of migrations 
and shifting residence, the title may have been alienated, 
or the land have passed by purchase to Emmor or Hamor, 
(likely the Shechem Prince), of whose family Jacob, per- 
haps for ancestral reasons, bought it back again. And 
may it not be that Stephen, along with Philo and Jose- 
phus, referred to a history, of which we now know noth- 
ing but which they knew well, that told of Abraham's 
purchase, and not Jacob's, which took place eighteen 
and a half decades later ? Surely, this is much more 
reasonable and sensible than to suppose that Stephen 
made a mistake which any ordinarily well-informed Jewish 
child could have corrected. Accordingly, Acts 7 : 16 
refers to one transaction and Joshua 24 : 32 to another 
185 years apart. Allowing this, the difficulty at once 
vanishes." 

Said Fred Leges, "I have a difficulty. I have been 
reading Farrar's Life of Christ, Vol. II, Chap, lx., Jesus 
before Pilate, where he says, p. 385, 'As to the hour, 
there is a well-known discrepancy between Jno. 19 : 14, 
And it was . . . about the sixth hour ; a?id he saith unto 
the Jews, Behold your King ; and Mark 15:25, And it 
was the third hour a?id they crucified him.' " 

Said the pastor : " The hour of Christ's passion, says 
Augustine, is 'a question which, above all others, is 
wont to stir up the shamelessness of the contentious, and 
to disturb the unskillfulness of the weak.' I know 



of the Bible. 77 

many commentators and harmonists have labored with 
this supposed difficulty. It may be because I am very 
stupid, but, really, I cannot see any discrepancy here. 
Mark says, 'It was the third hour, and they crucified him ;' 
but John refers to something altogether different : 'Pilate 
therefore brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the 
judgment seat, in a place that is called the Pavement, 
and it was the preparation of the passover, and about 
the sixth hour ; and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your 
King !' The two accounts are of different things : 
Mark dates the hour of the crucifixion, John a point in 
the 'preparation.' " 

Said Miss Rysen, "I remember that when our Sunday- 
school lesson was on 'Christ before Pilate,' the West- 
minster Teacher and Peloubet's Notes were very positive 
in making John's sixth hour, after the Roman method of 
computing time, to be 6 a. m., and Mark's third hour, 
after the Jewish mode of reckoning, to be 9 a. m." 

"Just so," said the pastor, "and during the three 
hours between six and nine a. m. occurred, according to 
Robinson's harmony, the Jew's final rejection of Jesus as 
king, Pilate's delivering him to them, their mocking 
him and the march to Calvary. And then came the cruci- 
fixion. Seeing the difference between the hours men- 
tioned, and the intervening events, I can find no difficulty 
at all." 

Said George Argent, " This matter of the crucifixion 
calls to my mind a discrepancy, or at least an inconsis- 
tency, I have felt in the account of some occurrences 
just after Christ's resurrection. In Jno. 20 : 17 he for- 
bids Mary to touch him because he had not yet ascended 
to the Father, and yet in Matt. 28 : 9, very soon after, 
certain women ' held him by the feet, and worshiped 
him.' Yes, and within a week he invited Thomas (Jno. 



78 Alleged Discrepancies 

20 : 27) to a tactual exploration of his wounds, in order 
to bring that doubting disciple to faith." 

Jno. 20 : 17, "Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not, for I 
am not yet ascended to my Father ; but go to my brethren, 
and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your 
Father, and to my God and your God.''' 

Matt. 28 : 9, "And as they went to tell his disciples, 
behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came 
and held him by the feet, and worshiped him. ' ' 

Said the pastor : " As to the inhibition in Jno. 20 : 17, 
Ryle says : ' This saying of our Lord is undeniably a 
very ' deep thing,' and the real meaning of it is a point 
which has greatly perplexed commentators.' Some 
would give to the word rendered ' touch ' an enlarged 
signification, such as ' fasten oneself to, cling to, hang 
on by, lay hold of, or grasp,' — definitions abundantly 
sanctioned by classical Greek lexicons. Accordingly, 
Sherlock in his 'Trial of the Witnesses,' says : 'The 
natural sense of this place is this : Mary Magdalene, upon 
seeing Jesus, fell at his feet and laid hold on them, and 
held them as if she never meant to let them go. Then 
Christ said to her : Touch me not, or hang about me 
now. You will have other opportunities of seeing me, 
for I go not yet to my Father. Lose no time then, but 
go quickly with my message to my brethren.' And 
West, on the Resurrection, says : ' I take Christ's for- 
bidding Mary to touch him, to have been meant as a 
signification of his intention to see her and the disci- 
ples again ; just as in ordinary life, when one friend says 
to another, 'Do not take leave fori am not going yet,' 
he means to let him know that he proposes to see him 
again before he sets out on his journey.' But Paulus, 
the vagarious German theologian, goes farther and main, 
tains the ridiculous idea that Christ meant, ' Do not lay 
a finger on me, because my wounds still smart ! ' " 



of the Bible. 79 

The pastor went on : " Having examined the com- 
ments of about two dozen writers, from the time of 
Chrysostom down to the present, it would become me to 
be very modest in offering anything contradictory to 
what they have written. But they all save one — Dr. 
Joel Jones — seem to me to get into the depths because 
they seek to evade or avoid the meaning that lies plainly 
on the surface. Christ forbade the touch of Mary simply 
and solely, so far as the record goes, because he had not 
ascended to the Father. If he were not to ascend right 
now, why send the message to his brethren by Mary at 
all ? For during the subsequent forty days he would 
have abundant opportunities of communicating the fact 
to them in person. A little later he permits this very 
same Mary, and another Mary (the mother of James and 
Joses), not only to touch him, but worshipfully to hold 
his feet. Between these two occasions certainly some- 
thing had occurred that made the reason of the forbid- 
ding inoperative ; and what can that something be, other 
than this, viz., that, during the interim, he had ascended 
and come back again f ' 

A look of surprise, plainly tinged with incredulous- 
ness, came into the faces of the trio, which the pastor 
was quick to notice ; but he continued, " You are famil- 
iar with the idea of Christ's three-fold office — prophetic, 
priestly, kingly. A prophet is not one who foretells 
future events only, but as the derivation of the word 
indicates, one who speaks for another. Christ had 
spoken for God in all the teaching he gave (Jno. 8 : 28), 
and with the completion of that teaching his prophetic 
function was fulfilled. Then came his priestly office, the 
type of which we find in the Old Testament high priest 
and his work. The Epistle to the Hebrews, as you know, 
is largely occupied with setting forth the priestly func- 



80 Alleged Discrepancies 

tion in type and fulfillment. In Ex. xxx. and Lev. xvi. 
we learn that the high priest took the blood of the ani- 
mal which he had slain and carried it ' within the vail/ 
i. e. , into the Holy of Holies, to ' sprinkle it upon the 
mercy seat ' (Lev. 16:15), in order to ' make an atone- 
ment for the children of Israel, for all their sin ' (Lev. 
16 : 34). And this was done 'once a year,' the priest 
entering the sacred place ' alone ' (Lev. 16 : 17, 34 ; Heb. 
9; 7). Christ, in his priestly work of making atonement 
not for Israel only but for ' the whole world ' ( 1 Jno. 
2:2), was not only the officiating priest, the offerer, 
but was himself the offering, the victim. When Mary 
met him he was right in the priestly sacrificial act. He 
had been slain on the cross, his blood had been shed, and, 
emerging from death into life by the resurrection, his 
next step was to take the sacrificial blood and enter 
f into the holy place,' in the 'greater and more perfect 
tabernacle' above (Heb. 9 : 11, 12). Of the Old Testa- 
ment priest we read : ' There shall be no man in the 
tabernacle of the congregation when he goeth in to 
make an atonement in the holy place, until he come out' 
(Lev. 16 : 17). So Christ, in the awful isolation of the 
act of supreme sacrifice, must be 'alone :' he must suf- 
fer no common or defiling 'touch.' Hence the 'touch 
me not ' to Mary ; and he bade her go to the brethren 
and say : ' I ascend unto my Father, and your Father.' 
While she bore the message he ' ascended,' and ' by his 
own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having 
obtained eternal redemption for us ' (Heb. 9 : 24). When 
he had 'come out,' then, as with the high-priest of old, 
he was ready to meet his brethren on the plane of fel- 
lowship and ' touch.' " 

While the look of surprise was still on the faces of the 
young people, the expression of incredulity had passed 



of the Bible. 8i 

away, and Fred Leges said: "Of course the sacrificial 
work of Christ must be done, and unto completion too ; 
and it seems to me that the only question that can be 
raised is as to when ' by his own blood he entered in once 
into the holy place.' Shall it be deferred for forty 
days, until the final ascension from Bethany, as 
recounted by Luke at the close of his gospel ? Really, 
that does not seem to comport at all with the necessary 
continuity of the priestly service in the great act of 
making atonement. Begun, evidently it should be car- 
ried on without cessation unto completion. Remember- 
ing how little space- measures and moments have to do 
with divine movements, objections on the score of the 
little time of the interim would not hold. Moreover, 
the fact of his having ascended makes plain to me what I 
never understood before, viz., the reason of his altered 
relation to his disciples during the forty days. He mani- 
festly did not company with them in the common earthly 
relations as aforetime, but the rather as an inhabitant of 
another world. And this makes plain, too, what he 
said to his disciples affrighted by his sudden and unex- 
pected appearance in their midst, Lk. 24 : 44. ' These 
are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet 
with you, that all things must be fulfilled,' etc Here 
is an evident contrast between two states, which his 
having gone to the Father and returned makes clear. 
The exposition our pastor has given not only seems to 
fit the situation completely, but to entirely remove the 
inconsistency which George has felt. I think there is 
nothing to do but to accept it." The others quite read- 
ily assented. 

The pastor added: " What I have said does not, of 
course, exhaust the work of Christ's priestly office. His 
function in priestly mediation and intercession will con- 



82 Alleged Discrepancies 

tinue until he enters upon his kingly office, which, as 
you know, is a matter of the future. Whatever may be 
true of his providential ruling and overruling now, only 
' at his appearing and his kingdom '(2 Tim. 4 : 1) will he 
ascend his kingly throne." 



of the Bible. 83 



CHAPTER XIV. 

At this meeting, after the usual greetings and the 
little company was ready for work, the pastor presented 
a letter which he had received from Morocco, Africa, 
from which he read : "A Moslem teacher, employed by 
us as a helper at one time, cited Jno. 5 : 31 and 8 : 14 as 
a contradiction. The reading is the same in each pas- 
sage in Arabic, as it is in the Greek. I should be glad 
to have the seeming discrepancy explained." 

Jno. 5 : 31, "If I bear witness of myself, my witness is 
not true. ' ' 

Jno. 8 : 14, "Even if 1 bear witness of myself * my witness 
is true." (R. V.) 

Said the pastor, "These words of Jesus, which present 
an apparent point-blank contradiction, are nevertheless 
quite capable of reconciliation." 

He went on : "The first text was spoken at the Pass- 
over time, near the beginning of the second year of 
Christ's ministry. He had healed a man on the Sabbath 
day (5 : 8-16), which the Jews regarded as a violation of 
the law of the Sabbath ; and worse yet he had blasphe- 
mously claimed equality with God (v. 17). 'Therefore 
the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not 
only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was 
his Father, making himself equal with God' (v. 18). Of 
course Jesus must vindicate himself, which he proceeds 
to do. According to the established rule of Jewish 
jurisprudence, Numb. 35 : 30 ; Deut. 17:6; 19 : 15, the 
testimony of one witness was not 'true, ' i. e. , was not valid, 
was not legal proof. He accepts the rule, and says, ' If 
I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true,' i. e., is 



84 Alleged Discrepancies 

not legally valid. (The Greek dictionary gives to the 
word rendered 'true' these definitions : unconcealed, true, 
valid, sure, sincere, upright, just.) A prophet without 
divine attestation, or even the Messiah without legal 
evidence, should be rejected. Therefore, in accordance 
with legal requirement, he adduces other witnesses, viz., 
John (vs. 32, 33), his own works (v. 36), the Father (v. 
37), and the Scriptures (v. 39, 46). Here is competent 
testimony. This is his vindication. The first text, then, 
was spoken from the view-point of the Jewish civil code. ' ' 
The pastor continued : " Some seven or more months 
pass, and Jesus is again at Jerusalem. The plot to kill 
him thickens. The Jews, still regarding him as a con- 
temner of the law of Moses and a blasphemer, hope to 
get evidence against him through the knotty case of the 
unchaste woman which they presented (8 : 3-1 1). And 
such a fiasco ! While doubtless leading her out into the 
light, he leaves them in the darkness of self-convicted 
sin (8 : 7-9). Then he says : ' I am the light of the 
world : he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, 
but shall have the light of life' (v. 12). The Pharisees 
come back at him with the old charge : 'Thou bearest 
witness of thyself ; thy witness is not true' (v. 13). But 
how changed the situation ! Back there he must be 
legally accredited as the Messiah. Accredited, he now 
presents himself as the Light of the world, a sure Guide 
through and from the moral darkness to the true life, 
concerning which office his own declaration cannot be 
otherwise than morally true ; and so he says : ' Though 
I bear witness of myself, my witness is true' (v. 14). 
And yet even here he does not leave himself unsup- 
ported, for, four verses farther on, he says : ' I am one 
that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me 
beareth witness of me' (v. 18). Thus while his own 



of the Bible. 85 

assertion is morally true, which is what he now intends, 
by adding the testimony of the Father also he makes it 
legally valid, even as it is written in their law, ' the tes- 
timony of two men is true' (v. 17)." 

Said Fred Leges: "I see it clearly. Jno. 5:31 is 
correct from its standpoint, viz., that of court process, 
or legal evidence ; while Jno. 8:14 is correct from the 
standpoint of moral truthfulness or veracity. There is, 
therefore, not only no contradiction between them, but 
they are perfectly harmonious." 

Said the pastor : " Here is a letter handed m«*by our 
Sunday-school Superintendent, which he received from 
a neighbor-friend with whom he had been having a dis- 
cussion, and in which t is charged that God is the author 
of sin, reference being made to Isa. 45 : 7, where God is 
said to ' create evil.' " 

George Argent's face brightened, and he said : "Now 
I hope I shall get a relief that I have been longing for. 
I must confess that my logic, as I reason back from effect 
to cause, lands me in the conclusion that God, as the 
first cause, must be the author of sin. But against this 
my whole moral nature revolts. So I was quite shocked 
last week, as I was reading Dr. A. H. Strong's 'Ethical 
Monism,' to find so great and good a man as the Presi- 
dent of the Rochester Theological Seminary, saying : 
1 He who ordained sin ordained also an atonement for 
sin, and a way of escape from it.' He says : ' This is 
also the view of Dr. R W. Dale, in his well-known work 
on the Atonement. He, too, holds that Christ is respon- 
sible for human sin, because, as the Upholder and Life 
of all, he is naturally one with all men.' ' 

Said the pastor : " If I were you, I would not take 
too seriously conclusions that result from the exigencies 
of a philosophical system. The question of the origin 



86 Alleged Discrepancies 

of sin is the question of the ages, which every thinker 
has tried, but unsuccessfully, to solve. The difficulty 
does not belong specially to theology. Sir William 
Hamilton has on the title page of one of his works, this : 
' No difficulty emerges in theology that has not previ- 
ously emerged in philosophy.' When, where, how, did 
sin originate? I do ■ not know: no one knows. The 
question, in the present limitations of our knowledge, 
and may be powers, is insolvable. You do right in revolt- 
ing against the abhorrent conclusion that a just and holy 
God is the author of sin. We must not allow that for a 
moment. But what we are concerned with just now is 
the imputation upon the Scriptures contained in this 
letter." 

Isa. 45 : 7, " I [the Lord] make peace and create evil." 

Ps. 5:4, " For thou art not a God that hath pleasure i?i 
wickedness; ?zeilher shall evil dwell with thee. ' ' 

Looking at some texts kindred with Isa. 45 : 7, — Jer. 
18:11; Lam. 3 : 38 ; Ezek. 20 : 25 ; Amos 3:6; and 
then some kindred with Ps. 5:4, — Deut. 32:4; Jer. 
29:11; 1 Cor. 14 : 33, the pastor went on : "The Hebrew 
word rendered 'evil' is ra, and it is used some 620 times. 
It is translated by 44 different English words or expres- 
sions, and while it is translated ' evil ' 422 times, it is 
never once translated sin ! The following will give you 
some idea of its use : 

Gen. 19:19, " lest some evil take me. " 

Gen. 24 : 50, " cannot speak unto them bad or good." 

Gen. 31 : 52, " Shall not pass over for harm." 

Gen. 41:4, " the ill favored kine." 

Gen. 44 : 29, "Bring down my gray hairs with sor- 
row. ' ' 

Ex. 32 : 22, " They are set on mischief." 

Numb. 11 : 15, " Let me not see my wretchedness." 



of the Bible. 87 

Deut. 6 : 22, " Wonders great and sore." 

Judges 11 : 27, " Thou doest me wrong to war." 

Judges 15 : 3, " Though I do them a displeasure." 

1 Sam. 10 : 19, "Out of all your adversities." 

Ps. 34 : 19, "Many are the afflictions." 

Ps. 141 : 5, " Prayer also shall be in their calamities." 

Such are some of its uses. " ' 

"Now," continued the pastor, "a glance at Isa. xliv. 
will show you that the main subject is the prosperity 
which would attend the arms of Cyrus ; and, as a result, 
reverses, calamities, i.e., 'evil' natural, political, social, 
economic, should come upon the nations whom he would 
subdue. God raised up Cyrus to inflict upon them the 
'evils' of military conquest in punishment of their idol- 
atries and sins, and * that they may know from the rising, 
of the sun, and from the west, that their is none besides 
me: I am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the 
light and create darkness : I make peace, and create evil 
[which is the opposite of peace, as the parallelism indi- 
cates]. I the Lord do all these things' (vs. 6, 7). The 
Hebrew word, you thus see, denotes the 'evils,' afflic- 
tions, adversities, calamities, of outward estate ; and 
while in a remote and secondary way, as other passages 
show, there may be added the idea of moral evil also, in 
connection with the actions of men, it can in no sense 
include moral evil as applied to God. The Scriptures 
nowhere give sanction to the monstrous proposition that 
God is the author of sin." 

" Well," said George, "lam thankful that this gives 
me just the relief I was longing for." 

Said the pastor, " In the letter to our Superintendent 
was another difficulty : ' It was prophesied of Judas, sev- 
eral hundred years before he was born, that he would 
betray our Master. Christ says he was born for that 
purpose.' " 



88 Alleged Discrepancies 

The pastor went on : ' 'There is no prophecy concerning 
Judas by name, as, for instance, there is concerning Cyrus, 
Isa. 45 : 1-4 ; nevertheless, the fact that was prophesied 
was fulfilled by the person, Judas (Acts 1 : 16). But to 
allege that Christ says he was born for the purpose of 
betraying him, is going quite beyond the record. This 
difficulty, however, is the old, old one of the apparent dis- 
crepancy between God's sovereignty in predestination and 
man's free agency in action. Even more, if possible, than 
the question of the origin of sin, has this been a question 
of the ages. Men, women, and even children, have exer- 
cised their brains with it, always to distraction rather 
than satisfaction so far as settling the question is con- 
cerned. Still, maybe we can settle ourselves in regard 
to it." 

At this, the trio quickened into intense alertness, for 
they had had in abundance not only the exercise, but the 
distraction, and if they could get " settled " they would 
be heartily glad. 

Continued the pastor : "First of all, there are two 
truths that must be recognized and allowed without any 
equivocation or abatement. The first is God' s sovereignty . 
This necessarily belongs to the very idea of an infinite, 
omniscient God. If he is God, he must foreknow what- 
soever is coming to pass, otherwise he cannot be omnis- 
cient and so cannot be God. But he cannot foreknow 
an event without it is certain. And how can it be cer- 
tain unless he provide for its certainty ? All this belongs 
to the very idea of God. We cannot rationally deny or 
doubt it if we would. I admit that the logical conclu- 
sion of God's sovereignty, standing alone by itself, is 
fatalism, — absolute fatalism. But we are not yet ready 
for a conclusion, for God's sovereignty does not stand 
alone by itself. There are other material facts to be 



of the Bible. 89 

introduced into our premises before a conclusion can be 
reached ; and the presence or absence of material facts 
will make all the difference between truth and error." 

" That's so," interposed Fred Leges : "in a case we 
had in court last week, the late discovery of material 
facts exonerated our client, and we cleared him ; other- 
wise he would have been convicted, and most unright- 
eously so, as it turned out." 

The pastor went on : " The second truth is man' s free 
agency. The testimony of every person's consciousness 
is that he is free. He knows he is free. That is some- 
thing which he cannot deny or doubt. Moreover, God 
everywhere treats him as free, for otherwise God could 
not hold him responsible. The two truths of sover- 
eignty and free agency are in fine juxtaposition in Acts 
2 : 23, ' Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel 
and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked 
hands have crucified and slain.' 'Foreknowledge, 
determinate counsel . . . delivered ' — that is sover- 
eignty : ' wicked hands,' — that is free agency, for they 
could not have been 'wicked' unless free. We have, 
then, these two facts of sovereignty and free agency, 
neither of which can we rightfully deny or doubt. We 
must allow them to be both true. If true, they are har- 
monious, for truths cannot contradict each other." 

"The correctness of this position," said George 
Argent, " seems to me undeniable ; but how do you 
reconcile the apparent contradiction ? " 

The pastor, smiling, responded : "If there is no con- 
tradiction, what is there to reconcile ? But I compose 
myself to the appearance of discrepancy this way : On 
my father's farm we had a hardworking but ignorant 
Dutchman for a tenant. One vacation, when I was 
home from college, I was telling him about the daily 
revolution of the earth upon its axis. He thought I was 



go Alleged Discrepancies 

guying him. 'No, no,' said honest John, ' you can't 
stuff yer college larnin' down me. Here we are, our 
feet down and our heads up ; now when we turn around 
onto the other side, we'd have our feet up and our heads 
down, and it's common sense we'd fall off. But we don't, 
and here we are, this side up all the time. Say, you ; 
quit yer foolin.' " 

A hearty laugh followed this story, but the pastor 
went on : " You laugh at this poor man's ignorance : 
why not laugh at our own ignorance? The antipodal, 
foot-to-foot, facts that seemed so contradictory to him, 
are perfectly harmonious to us, because we understand 
the law that reconciles them, — the law of gravitation 
that binds bodies to the earth. So, we have the antipo- 
dal, seemingly contradictory, facts of sovereignty and 
free agency, which, as we have seen, are perfectly har- 
monious because true : only we, in our ignorance, do 
not now understand the law which makes the harmony 
appear. Maybe we shall, hereafter, when ' in thy light 
we shall see light' (Ps. 36: 9). While I do not thus 
settle the question itself, I settle myself in regard to it, 
and rest content in an ignorance which, in God's good 
time, may give place to complete knowledge." 

The trio, almost with one voice, responded: "You 
have settled us, too; " and Miss Rysen added: "If 
there is anything lacking in the satisfaction, I certainly 
shall have no more distraction with this difficulty in the 
future." 

" One more word," said the pastor ; " the difficulty, 
with respect to Judas, is neither more nor less than 
attaches to every free action, good or bad, of every man 
under God's sovereign government. ' No difficulty 
emerges in theology that has not previously emerged 
in philosophy.' Such is the natural constitution of 
things." 



of the Bible. 91 

Said George Argent : "This subject of God's sover- 
eignty and man's free agency brings to my mind the 
discrepancy, or at least the difficulty, I have felt in con- 
nection with the Scripture statements concerning the 
security of the believer — ' once in grace always in grace,' 
as the idea is — and what St. Paul says about being 'a 
castaway.' " 

Said the pastor : "I see the association of ideas in 
your mind. Your difficulty is perhaps best set forth in 
the following texts :" 

Jno. 6 : 40, " And this is the will of Him that sent me, 
that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, 
may have everlasting life ; and I will raise him up at the 
last day. ' ' 

1 Cor. 9 : 27, " But I keep my body under, and bring it 
into subjection, lest that by any mea?is, when I have preached 
to others, I myself should be a castaway." 

He went on : "The doctrine or truth, of the inviola- 
ble security of the believer, of the final perseverance of 
the saints, of the certain connection between grace and 
glory, is one of the most explicitly taught, as it is one 
of the most comforting truths of Scripture. When 
one truly believes on Jesus Christ he ' hath everlasting 
life' (Jno. 5:24; 6:47). Upon believing, the life 
becomes a present possession — ' hath ;' and it is inalien- 
able, for it is ' everlasting :' if everlasting it cannot come 
to an end. In Christ's discourse in Jno. vi., again and 
again, as in a strain of grand and solemn music comes 
the refrain, ' And I will raise him up at the last day' 
(vs. 39, 40, 44, 54). Whom God graciously calls, he not 
only justifies, but glorifies (Rom. 8 130). Paul's setting 
forth of this same truth you may also see in 2 Cor. 5 : 1-8 ; 
2 Tim, 4:6-8; etc., etc." 

"When Paul spoke of the possibility of his becoming 



92 Alleged Discrepancies 

'a castaway,' was his final salvation within the scope of 
his intent ? Did he have any reference to that at all ? 
No." 

The pastor continued : "The Greek word translated 
'castaway,' adokimos, is used in the New Testament 
eight times. In Rom. 1:28; 2 Cor. 13 : 5, 6, 7 ; 2 Tim. 
3:8; and Titus 1 : 16, it is rendered 'reprobate.' In 
Heb. 6:8, 'rejected:' 'But that which beareth thorns 
and briers is rejected. ' The Revisers have very properly 
cast away the word 'castaway,' and accepted 'rejected.' 
So the verse reads : 'Lest when I have preached to others, 
I myself should be rejected.' " 

"The Greek word is compounded of a privative and 
the adjective dokimos. The adjective is derived from a 
verb which, in classical Greek, is the technical word for 
putting money to the proof : that which endures the test 
is dokimos, approved, accepted, and that which fails is 
adokimos, disapproved, rejected, cast away. Here, say, 
are two coins just from the die in the stamp room of the 
mint. They go to the tester. One stands every test : 
it is dokimos, proved and approved, and is passed out 
into the world's marts to do its work in the realm of 
commerce. The other is just a trifle short weight, or 
has some other defect : it is adokimos, disapproved, 
rejected as a coin of commerce. It is a coin still, how- 
ever : it is not counterfeit : it simply is not fit for use." 

"Now, what is the application of this to the apostle 
Paul?" 

"Note his course of thought. In the preceding chap- 
ter (viii.) a question had arisen among the Corinthian 
Christians concerning the eating of meats that had been 
offered in sacrifice to idols. He tells them that the eat- 
ing of such meat was not in itself wrong ; nevertheless 



OF THE BlBLK. 93 

it should be avoided if it gave offense or were a stumbling 
block to other believers. 'Take heed,' he says, 'lest by 
any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling block 
to them that are weak' (8 : 9). Then in chapter ix. he 
enforces the duty of consulting the good of the brethren, 
by showing that he had given up what men would call 
his rights, and had accommodated himself to the opinions 
and prejudices of people, i. e-, where Christian principle 
or the honor of Christ were not involved. This leads 
him to speak still further of the necessity of self-denial 
and earnestness of purpose, not to be saved but to gain a 
crown." 

"In urging this self-denial and earnestness, he takes 
an illustration from the Greek athletic contests — the 
Isthmian games — that were celebrated near Corinth. 
He says, ' Know ye not that they which run in a race 
run all, but one receiveth the prize ? So run that ye may 
obtain' (9 : 24). And he says, ' Every man that striveth 
for the mastery is temperate in all things' (9 : 25). 'Tem- 
perate' — they restrained and trained themselves for 
highest physical effectiveness. For what ? At the end 
of the stadium, upon a post, before the eyes of the run- 
ner, hung the coveted crown, a quickly fading wreath of 
laurel leaves. 'Now they do it,' he says, 'to obtain a 
corruptible crown.' We? We do it to obtain an 'incor- 
ruptible' crown. Paul was in the Christian race: he 
kept his body under, he brought it into subjection, he 
trained it to make it helpful for service, lest untrained, 
lest the flesh becoming dominant, he should be disap- 
proved in the contest, ruled off the course, rejected, 
and so fail to receive the crown. He preached to others, 
i. £.,(to keep the figure,) he was a runner, but he might 
not be a crowned runner." 



94 Alleged Discrepancies 

Still the pastor went on : "Very plainly, therefore, 
it is not a question of salvation at all, but simply a ques- 
tion of reward. Salvation is a free gift : reward is some- 
thing earned. As a contestant for a crown he might be 
rejected, cast away, because of unfitness for service. A 
person may be a child of God, and yet be disapproved as 
a servant of Christ. To be a servant of Christ involves 
self-denial, self-judgment, self-emptiness, self-control. 
We do not become children of God by such exercises ; 
but most assuredly we shall never become successful 
servants of Christ without them." 

"In first Corinthians, chapter in., we have something 
quite parallel. There, a person may rest on Christ, as a 
foundation, and build thereon, but with unworthy, com- 
bustible materials. In the testing time, 'he himself shall 
be saved, yet so as by fire' (v. 15), but hisbuilded super- 
structure shall be burned up, whereby he shall lose his 
reward — saved, but not rewarded." 

Said Fred Leges thoughtfully : "I see that this 
removes the difficulty entirely. The casting away is not 
a question of salvation at all, but a question of service. 
But it is a very serious question, nevertheless. While 
we may rejoice in our security, it seems to me that we 
who love the Lord and want to serve him, should be 
most strenuously careful that we do nothing in any way 
by which we would weaken or lose our influence, or 
lessen the emphasis of or lose our testimony, and thus 
put ourselves in condition such that the Lord cannot use 
us, and so perforce make us 'a castaway.' ' 

The trembling in Fred's voice as he uttered his clos- 
ing words showed that his feelings were deeply stirred ; 
which so touched the hearts of the others that they could 
not but give a fervent assent to what he said. 



of the Bible. 95 



CHAPTER XV. 

Miss Rysen began by saying : "Our Sunday-school 
lessons being now upon our Saviour's passion, the differ- 
ences in the inscriptions upon the cross have been brought 
up in my Bible Class." She read as follows : 

Matt. 27 : 37, " This is Jesus the king of the Jews." 
Mk. 15 : 26, " The king of the Jews." 
Lk. 23 : 38, " This is the king of the Jews." 
Jno. 19: 19, ' ' Jesus of Nazareth , king of the Jews. ' ' 
Said the pastor : "Much has been made of these differ- 
ences, and quite unnecessarily so, as it seems tome. Dr. 
Middleton went so far as to charge these superscriptions 
with 'want of accuracy and truth. ' The problem is to 
account for the differences." 

The pastor continued : ' ' Luke and John say that the 
superscriptions were written in Hebrew, Greek, and 
Latin. There is an old idea, finely set forth in Dr. Gre- 
gory's 'Why Four Gospels?' that Matthew's gospel was 
for the Jew, Mark's for the Roman, Luke's for the Greek, 
and John's for the New Man in Christ Jesus. Matthew, 
it is thought, therefore took the Hebrew form of the 
inscription, Mark the Latin, and Luke the Greek. It is 
not difficult to justify this opinion. 'Jesus' is peculiarly 
a Hebrew name, of ancient flavor, and Matthew uses it 
nearly as many times as Mark and Luke together. Mat- 
thew's is pre-eminently the gospel of the kingdom, and he 
there presents Jesus as the king of the Jews, without the 
prejudicing name of Nazareth attached. Mark's gospel, 
for the Roman, the man of swift, decisive action and 
terse speech, uses the Latin form and simply says : 'The 
king of the Jews.' Luke's gospel, for the Greek, the 
man of thought and culture, gives the more rounded and 



96 Alleged Discrepancies 

polished Greek form : 'This is the king of the Jews.' 
And it is noticeable that in naming the three languages 
Luke puts the Greek first, instead of the Hebrew as John 
does. John's gospel, for the Christian, uses the name 
'Jesus' one-third more times than Matthew, and he is 
'Jesus of Nazareth,' lowly, despised, and yet at the same 
time the exalted 'King of the Jews.' Hence his form of 
the inscription. Many are satisfied with this solution." 
" Another solution is offered," said the pastor. "There 
was one (albeit in three languages), full, complete 
inscription, and each gospel-writer took from it just what 
suited his purpose ; so each one was absolutely correct 
in presenting his form as in that measure the inscription. 
The full form, as given by Pilate, and the part of each 
would be as follows : ' ' 

Pilate : This is Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews. 

Matt. : This is Jesus .... the king of the Jews. 

Mark : the king of the Jews. 

Luke : This is the king of the Jews. 

John : . . Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews. 
Continued the pastor : "This solution maybe regarded 
by many as entirely satisfactory ; but I think either 
should perfectly relieve the gospels of the charge of 'want 
of accuracy and truth,' or of the semblance of contra- 
diction. Edward Garbett, in his 'God's Word Written/ 
p. 258, gives for the treatment of Bible difficulties, this 
very sensible rule: 'Rule 3. Variations of statement 
are not contradictions, when they arise either from record- 
ing different parts of some common event, or from 
assigning a different emphasis and importance to the 
same parts.' This rule, the reasonableness of which 
must certainly commend it to all, would, if applied, 
relieve not only this difficulty, but many of the so-called 
'discrepancies' of the Bible." 

Said George Argent: " The differences in the cross- 



of the Bible. 97 

superscriptions, in their bearing upon the question of 
plenary inspiration, have not troubled me nearly so much 
as St. Paul's apparent disclaimer of inspiration in i Cor. 
7 : 10 12." 

i Cor. 7 : io, " And unto the married I command, yet 
not I, but the Lord. ' ' 

i Cor. 7 : 12, " But to the rest speak /, not the Lord." 
They all had the passage before them, and the pastor 
began : ' ' You will observe that in this chapter the 
apostle is treating of marriage with respect to the 
unmarried, widows, believers united to unbelievers, and 
virgins in view of the 'present distress' (v. 26), i. e., 
calamities, persecutions, either actually present or 
impending (Matt. 10 : 17 ; Jno. 15 : 20 ; 1 Thess. 3 : 7). 
When he says : ' I command, yet not I, but the Lord,' 
he refers to Christ's own commandment in the Gospels 
(Matt. 5 : 32 ; 19 : 3-9 ; Mk. 10 : 2-12 ; Lk. 16 : 18) ; 
but when he says, ' to the rest speak I, not the Lord,' 
he does not disclaim Divine authority and rest the com- 
mand on his own private advice, but he authoritatively 
decides a new case on which the Lord had not spoken. 
And then, in v. 25, he says : ' Concerning virgins I have 
no commandment of the Lord ; yet I give my judgment 
as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faith- 
ful,' i. e. y in absence of any direct command of Christ, 
he was guided by the Spirit (according to Christ's prom- 
ise, Jno. 16 : 13) to give the prudential advice he gave, 
which, by leaving the matter open to each one's dis- 
cretion, as a case of expediency, relieved their con- 
sciences and set them at rest. That this is the proper 
view is evident from the concluding words of the dis- 
cussion, v. 40, ' I think also that I have the Spirit of 
God,' where the verb dokeo, I think, as in classical use, 
does not necessarily express a mere seeming, something 



x7 



c$ Alleged Discrepancies 

doubtful, but a seeming which is true. Says Hodge : 

1 1 thiyik {doko) I have, is only, agreeably to Greek usage, 
an urbane way of saying I have, comp. Gal. 2 : 6. i Cor. 

12 : 22. Paul was in no doubt of his being an organ of 
the Holy Ghost." Upon the authority of the Vatican 
manuscript the Emphatic Diaglott translates thus : ' I 
am certain that even I have the Spirit of God." St. 
Paul, therefore does not disclaim inspiration, but, hav- 
ing the Spirit of God. he is divinely led to say, ' she is 
happier if she so abide ' (v. 40) . and thus there is Divine 
authority for the counsel which in this instance leaves 
option to the ones advised. " 

Said George again: "I have another Pauline diffi- 
cult}" on which I would like to have light thrown." He 
read the passages : 

Acts 20: 22, "And yioiv, behold I go bound in the 
spirit unto Jerusalem . ' * 

Acts 21:4. " Who said to Paul through the Spirit, 
that he should not go up to Jerusalem.' ' 

Said the pastor : " The point of your difficulty is in 
identifying the ' spirit ' in the first passage with the 
Holy Spirit — which is a mistake. If that were correct, 
there would be a glaring contradiction. In Acts 20 : 22. 
' spirit ' is sharply discriminated from the Third Per- 
son of the Trinity by the word ' holy ' in the next 
verse : Save that the Holy Spirit witnesseth in every 
city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me.' The 
reference is therefore to Paul's own spirit, or mind. 
That both the authorized and revised versions so under- 
stand it is seen in the fact that the}* both print the word 
'spirit' with a small "s' instead of a capital 'S.' 
To go ' bound in the spirit ' was to go under inward 
constraint from an invincible sense of duty. Such over- 
powering compulsion would render him indifferent to 



of the Bible. 99 

awaiting dangers, and insensible to remonstrances, as 
came to him, for instance, from his friends in x\cts 21: 4." 
George interposed : "In that verse the word l Spirit ' 
is printed with capital 'S,' showing that the Holy 
Spirit is intended. This presents now a still graver dif- 
ficulty. The Spirit bade him not to go to Jerusalem, 
and yet he went right along. Was he disobedient to a 
divine command?" 

The pastor replied : ' ' Did the Holy Spirit forbid him 
to go to Jerusalem ? I think not. The ground of the 
disciples' remonstrance was the ' bonds and afflictions ' 
that awaited him there, the foreknowledge of which the 
Holy Spirit imparted to them, and their affectionate 
regard for him led them to urge him not to go. Their 
foreknowledge was inspired, but the advice based upon it 
was a merely human inference. They gave admonition 
and warning, but not a positive divine command. He 
was apprised of the danger, and then left to the free 
determination of his own will. He accepted their good 
wishes, but did not yield to their warning. That Christ 
approved of his conduct may easily be gathered from 
Acts 23 : 11. 'The Lord stood by him, and said. Be of 
good cheer. Paul ; for as thou hast testified of me in 
Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome." So 
any charge against the Apostle would not hold.'" 

Said Fred Leges : "I was reading the third chapter 
of Xumbers with considerable care, and I stumbled upon 
a difficulty that I do not see how to resolve.'' He 
handed the pastor a slip of paper on which was the fol- 
lowing : 

Numb. 3 : 22, the family of Gershon . . 7.500 

3 : 2S, " " " Kohath . . S.600 

" 3 : 34, " " " Merari . . 6.200 

22.300 
" 3 : 39 sum. of the three families 22.000 

How account for the difference of . . ^00? 



L.cf 



ioo Alleged Discrepancies 

Said the pastor humorously : " This is an old acquain- 
tance of mine. That the writer intended to give any of 
these numbers with exact mathematical accuracy, seems 
hardly probable, for you will notice that in the first three 
instances they are given in even thousands and hun- 
dreds ; and in the last case, in even thousands. And it 
seems singular, too, that each family account should end 
in an even hundred. So, some would solve the difficulty 
by saying that when the families were spoken of sepa- 
rately the round thousands and hundreds were given, but 
when they were summed into the larger total, only the 
round thousands ; for it is a very common method simply 
to use round numbers." 

" Then," continued the pastor, "others might solve 
the difficulty by applying the principle of the greater 
including the less. The actual total is 22,300, but 
when in v. 39 the writer gives 22,000, he does not say 
there were no more than that. If there were 22,300 
there must have been 22,000, the less being included in 
the greater ; so there is no contradiction." 

Said Fred impulsively: "That looks easy. Why 
didn't I see it myself !" 

"But," said the pastor, " there is another solution 
which you may prefer." As Miss Rysen sat nearest the 
book-case, he asked her to take down Lange's Commen- 
tary on Numbers and read, from page 29, the marked 
passage. She read as follows : " The numbers of the 
tribe branches, 7,500, 8,600 and 6, 200 added together give 
the sum 22,300 ; whereas the number given is only 
22,000. We think the Rabbinical solution of this appar- 
ent discrepancy of numbers quite well founded, notwith- 
standing the doubts of Knobel and Keil. If the sum 
total of the Levites was to determine the ratio which 
they bore to the sums of the first-born in the other tribes, 



of the Bible. ioi 

because the surplus of the first-born had to be redeemed 
in money, then the first-born among the Levites should 
certainly not be included in the count, else there would 
be nullity in the calculation. For them 300 was there- 
fore deducted. This seems to us a much more evident 
explanation than the supposition of a blunder in the 
text." 

After this disposition of the case, George Argent said: 
" Yesterday I was reading: about Samuel anointing David 
to be king over Israel. According to 1 Sam. 16 : 10, 11 
and 17 : 12, Jesse had eight sons, and David was the 
eighth and youngest. I had the curiosity to look up the 
marginal reference to Chronicles, and I found in 1 Chron. 
2 : 15, this : 'Ozem the sixth, David the seventh.' How 
can this be ?" 

Said the pastor : " In First Samuel, the story is of the 
time of David's boyhood, when there were eight sons, 
only four of whom were there named (16 : 6-13). The 
genealogical table in First Chronicles was evidently made 
at a later date, when the sons of the family were as fol- 
lows : 1. Eliab ; 2. Abinadab ; 3. Shimea ; 4. Nethanel ; 
5. Raddai ; 6. Ozem ; 7. David." 

"Yes," said George, "but how about the 'missing 
link?' " 

Said the pastor : " You will find him in 1 Chron. 27 : 
18, ' Elihu, one of the brethren of David.' And it is 
said that the Syriac and Arabic lists place him between 
Ozem and David." 

" Please pardon me," said George, " if I appear a little 
bit obstinate ; but is the Hebrew word there rendered 
' brethren,' the one to denote persons born of the same 
parents?" 

" Yes," said the pastor, " and it is the only one that 
is. Another Hebrew word, tea, in its more than 180 



102 Alleged Discrepancies 

occurrences, while it is translated another, co??ipanion, 
fellow, friend, husband, lover, neighbor, is translated bro- 
ther but once, Deut. 24 : 10, and the Revision renders 
that neighbor. But the word here, ach, is a primitive 
word for 'brother' in its closest consanguineous relations, 
and is, as I say, the only Hebrew word to express that 
relation." 

The trio were now intently watching to see how these 
things were to be put together. After a moments 
thought the pastor said : " A few days ago my wife and 
our youngest son sat together on the piazza, when the 
census-taker called. To the question ' How many child- 
ren ?' she responded : ' We have three sons, and here 
[pointing to him] is our third and youngest.' To the 
census-taker she stated exactly the truth as to our living 
family ; but the fact is, we have had four sons, the 
eldest having died several years ago." 

"Oh, I see," said Fred, "in David's boyhood Jesse 
had eight sons; but years later, when the list of the 
' census-taker ' was made, Elihu had died, and David 
was therefore advanced from the eighth to the seventh 
place." 

Said the pastor beamingly : " Fred, I confidently 
expect to see you wearing a wig and sitting on a wool 
sack some day, for not infrequently your su minings up 
here have been worthy of a Judge. Your conclusion 
seems to me not only a most reasonable, but a very pro- 
bable, supposition ; and a solution that carries a high 
degree of reasonableness and probability, and that com- 
pletely and legitimately relieves a difficulty, is certainly 
to be preferred before crediting the text with a discrep- 
ancy ;" with which they all quite agreed. 



of the Bible. 103 



CHAPTER XVI. 

• The work of the evening was introduced by George 
Argent saying : " Fred and I, in our recent Bible study 
together, hunting up some marginal references, observed 
the difference between passages in the Old Testament 
and as they are quoted in the New. For instance, in 
1 Cor. 1 : 19 St. Paul quotes from Isa. 29 : 14, making a 
noticeable change : 

Isa. 29 : 14, " And the wisdom of their wise men shall 
perish." 

1 Cor. 1 : 19, ' • For it is written, I will destroy the wis- 
dom of the wise.''' 

In the next chapter is another instance of a change in 
quoting from Isaiah : 

Isa. 64 : 4, " God hath prepared for him that waiteth for 
Him." 

1 Cor. 2:9, " God hath prepared for them that love 
Him." 

In the tenth chapter of Hebrews the changing of a 
verse from the Psalms is very marked : 

Ps. 40 : 6, ' l Sacrifice and offeri?ig thou didst not desire : 
mine ears hast thou opened." 

Heb. 10:5, " Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but 
a body hast Thou prepared me." 

Then, again, in Ephesians, fourth chapter, St. Paul 
apparently just reverses the meaning of the passage from 
the Psalms which he quotes : 

Ps. 68: 18, " Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led 
captivity captive, thou hast received gifts for men." 

Eph. 4:8, " Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up 
on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men." 



104 Alleged Discrepancies 

Said Miss Rysen : "I have often noticed these appar- 
ent discrepancies, and wondered what their solution is ; 
for I assumed that there must be good reason for the 
changes, even though I did not know what the reasons 
are. 

The pastor, seeing their inquiring, not to say per- 
plexed, look, said : " George, you have brought up one 
of the most difficult questions with which Biblical 
scholarship has to deal. Much, very much, has been 
written upon it, some of which has been wise, some quite 
otherwise. Of course destructive criticism has made the 
most of whatever difficulty there is. Accommodation, 
misunderstanding, misquotation, quoting from memory 
and memory playing false, etc., etc., have been alleged 
as accounting for these apparent discrepancies. For 
instance, Tholuck says : ' In very many, in most cases, 
in consequence of quoting from memory, the passage, 
so far as the words are concerned, is altered sometimes 
to such an extent that the deviation has even caused the 
supposition that the citation belonged to some apocryphal 
book.' " 

Holding aloft Professor Howard Osgood's pamphlet, 
"Quotations of the Old Testament in the New Testa- 
ment," the pastor said : " I have here the entire embodi- 
ment of the Old Testament, so far as it has been 
embodied, in the New . every quotation with the formula, 
' it is written,' 'God said,' 'that it might be fulfilled,' 
etc., every quotation without a formula, every direct 
reference, and every similarity of word or thought. But 
we are now considering simply the matter of quota- 
tions." 

11 You will be interested to know,'' continued the pas- 
tor, " that Genesis is quoted 19 times, and in 9 New Tes- 



of the Bible. 105 

tament books ; Exodus 24 times, and in 12 books ; Levit- 
icus 12 times, and in 9 books ; Deuteronomy 26 times, 
and in 13 books ; the Psalms 59 times, and in 12 books ; 
Isaiah 50 times, and in 11 books. But I have not time to 
go through the list." 

The pastor went on: "Of course you are entirely 
familiar with the fact that the Old Testament was writ- 
ten in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek, and that 
the Septuagint is the translation of the Hebrew of the 
Old Testament into Greek, made at Alexandria in Egypt 
about 280 B. C. The Septuagint was in common use in 
Palestine. Now, the quotations in the New, of the Old, 
may be distributed into three classes: 1. Those agree- 
ing verbatim with the Hebrew ; 2. Those agreeing ver- 
batim with the Septuagint where it differs from the 
Hebrew ; 3. Those differing from both the Hebrew and 
the Septuagint, of which, according to Home, there are 
nineteen." 

" Formidable, apparently, as is the difficulty that con- 
fronts us, I have a solution that satisfies me," continued 
the pastor. "Of course I assume that the Old Testa- 
ment is inspired of God, for in old time 'holy men of 
God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.' (2 
Pet. 1 : 21), and ' all scripture \i. e. the Old Testament 
writings] is given by inspiration of God ' (2 Tim. 3 : 16). 
I assume also, in accordance with Christ's promise (Jno. 
14: 26 ; 16 : 13 ; Matt. 10 : 19, 20 : Mk. 13:11; L,k. 12 : 
11, 12 ; 21 : 14, 15), that the New Testament is inspired. 
The Holy Spirit is the primal author of both. Now, an 
author certainly has the right to quote in one place what 
he has said in another, and if, in quoting, he finds it 
needful, for the accomplishment of his purpose, to make 
any change in the quotation, he certainly has the right 



106 Alleged Discrepancies 

to do that. Applying this obvious principle to the case 
in hand, we must say that the same Holy Spirit is 
responsible for the original writing and for the changed 
quotation." 

" Well, that is lucid, and I must say sensible," inter- 
posed the alert Fred Leges, with which judgment his 
companions agreed. 

The pastor went on: " The reasonableness and suf- 
ficiency of this solution will appear, I trust, as we exam- 
ine each of the passages to which George has called our 
attention. Take the first, 'the wisdom of their wise men 
shall perish' from Isaiah, and 'I will destroy the wisdom 
of the wise' from Corinthians. The insufficiency of 
human reason to lead to salvation is taught over and 
over again in Scripture, and here the Holy Spirit is mak- 
ing clear by a second and further revelation, the cause 
of their wisdom perishing, is God himself. This is both 
pertinent and pat. Take the second, ' him that waiteth 
for Him ' from Isaiah, and 'them that love Him' from 
Corinthians. By the way, a distinguished English cler- 
gyman has a sermon on this passage from Corinthians 
(vs. 9, 10), entitled ' God's Revelation of Heaven ;' and 
the verses are usually quoted as though they had refer- 
ence to the heavenly world. Not so ; for both prophet 
and apostle are speaking of God's redemptive provision 
for mankind through the Messiah. But the Messiah, 
for whom the saints of the old dispensation waited in 
hope, has come ; and to the saints of the new dispensa- 
tion He is the personal object of love, both as they look 
back at his coming to earth and as they look forward to 
his coming again. Hope has been changed to love; and 
so it was needful that just this change should be made 
in quoting. The Holy Spirit is simply making an 
advance in revelation, casting new light on the way of 
truth and life." 



of the Bible. 107 

Said Miss Rysen impulsively : ' ' How delightful this 
is ! And how plain when once it is pointed out to you P • 

" Take the third," said the pastor : " 'mine ears hast 
thou opened' from Psalms, and ' a body hast thou pre- 
pared me' from Hebrews. Ears opened, or 'digged' as 
the margin has it, with reference to Ex. 21 : 6, where 
the bondslave through love for his master is not willing 
to leave him, and so has his ear bored through with an 
awl in token of perpetual sacrifice of service and obedi- 
ence, is the idea of the original Hebrew. But - a body 
hast thou prepared me' is the differing rendering of the 
Septuagint, which the New Testament writer adopts and 
on which he builds his argument. Says L,ee : ' Com- 
mentators of the most opposite schools are singularly 
unanimous in regarding the New Testament form of 
exhibiting this passage as a strictly correct representa- 
tion of the sense of the original.' The teaching is, that 
personal obedience to the will of God rather than pre- 
senting animal offerings is the true sacrifice. And how 
could the Son of God coming into the world best show 
his obedience except through a prepared body ? To show 
his absolute and unreserved subjection of himself to his 
Father's pleasure as a servant (Jno. 4 : 34 ; 5 : 30 ; 6 : 38; 
Ivk. 22 : 42), he took upon himself the form of a servant, 
was made in the likeness of men (Phil. 2 : 7), and in this 
prepared body he made obedient and serving sacrifice. 
Thus, in the New Testament quotation, the Holy Spirit 
gives a significant exposition of the idea veiled in the 
first writing. Manifestly, a divine wisdom is in the 
change. Take the last case : ' received gifts for men ' 
from Psalms, and 'gave gifts unto men' from Ephesians. 
Christ, in his humiliation and fitting for his priestly 
office, must of necessity have somewhat also to offer, 
even as every high priest was ordained to offer gifts and 



io8 



Alleged Discrepancies 



sacrifices (Heb. 8:3). He, therefore, 'received gifts for 
men,' and, in due time, ascended to dispense them, 
which he is constantly doing through this dispensation. 
Accordingly, as high priest and head of the church, he 
'gives gifts unto men.' As Hengstenberg well observes, 
the giving presupposes the receiving, and the receiving 
is succeeded by the giving as a consequence. In the 
change of the quotation, the Holy Spirit made, not only 
a fitting, but a logical, advance in revelation, carrying 
on through a New Testament writer the work which he 
had begun. And I doubt not that the rationale which 
we have found in these four cases, and which seems to 
me valid and sufficient, has existence in every case of 
difference. If so, then the whole question of difficulty 
is settled. All we have to do is to go on, if we care to, 
and seek the rationale in the other cases." 

Said Fred Leges, with an air of relief: " I see it. 
The proper thing to do, is to credit all these changes in 
quotations, not to any mistake or defect in the New 
Testament writer, but to the design of the Holy Spirit 
himself, he thereby carrying on to fuller unfolding the 
revelation begun in the Old Testament." 

"Precisely so," said the pastor, "and this is just 
what is demanded of every view of the Scriptures which 
allows them to be in any adequate sense, the Word of 
God." 

George Argent, turning to the pastor, said : " Your 
exposition of the matter seems to me eminently reason- 
able and satisfactory. And you have done a good deal 
more than simply to solve the difficulty in these four 
cases : you have exhibited a method which I trust we 
shall all be able to make available and successful in our 
further Bible Study ;" which remark had the hearty con- 
currence of both Miss Rysen and Fred Leges. 



OF THE BlBLK. 109 



CHAPTER XVII. 

When the little company was ready for work, Fred 
Leges said : "I received yesterday another visit from 
the president of the Agnostic Club, and he began by 
saying : ' My respectable and respected young friend, I 
would respectfully acquaint you with the fact that if, for 
a few minutes you can lay aside your consideration of 
the great principles of jurisprudence that so profoundly 
engage your expanded and expanding intellect, and con- 
descend to shed illumination upon a religious subject that 
is troubling my dark and benighted mind, you will con- 
fer a great favor upon me, and you will have your reward, 
if not in this world, then in the next one, if there be any 
such place, concerning which I have my serious doubts.' 
Of course I understood that his pretended seeking for light 
was only mockery; but I was interested to know what trap 
he was about to spring. Reaching for my Bible, he said: 
' Please listen while I read : . 

2 Kings 24:8, " Jehoiachin was 18 years old when 
he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem three 
months." 

2 Chron. 36 : 9, "Jehoiachin was 8 years old when he 
began to reign ; and he reigned three months and ten 
days in Jerusalem." 

And when that is illuminated,' continued the Agnos- 
tic, ' just turn your calcium rays on this : 

2 Kings 8:26, " Two and twenty years old was 
Ahaziah when he began to reign, and he reigned one year 
in Jerusalem." 

2 Chron. 22 : 2, " Forty and two years old was Ahaziah 
when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jeru- 
salem." ' 



no 



Alleged Discrepancies 



"And when," continued Fred, " he showed by a 
reference to the close of the preceding chapter in Second 
Chronicles that this last quotation would make Ahaziah 
two years older than his father, I confess I was up 
against a proposition that I was unable to throw light 
upon . ' ' 

The young people together turned to their pastor, who 
responded : "I came upon these passages several years 
ago, and proceeded to satisfy myself in regard to them. 
As this may be our last meeting (at which suggestion 
tears sprang to their eyes, for their minister, finding him- 
self unable longer to bear the peculiar burdens resting 
upon him, had resigned his pastorate and was soon to 
depart), perhaps I had better do a little more than simply 
treat the passages in question, and say something in 
regard to the numerous numerical difficulties in the Old 
Testament. These first, however." 

" Take the first one," continued the pastor. "The 
difference of ten years in the case of Jehoiachin is very 
easily accounted for, on an eminently reasonable sup- 
position based on the fact that we know from frequent 
mention in Kings and Chronicles that sons were often- 
times associated with fathers, as 'consorts' (see margin, 
2 K. 13: 10; 15: 1) in the government. One of the 
most expert chronologists I know, tabulating the reigns 
of the kings of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and 
writing me of this matter, said : 'Jehoram, of Israel, was 
associated with Ahaziah five years before his death and 
after his accident ; Joash, of Israel, was three years asso- 
ciated with his father Jehoahaz, and he was eleven years, 
sick, associated with his son Jeroboam II. So Amaziah, 
of Judah, was associated three years with his father Joash; 
Ahaz was six years associated with Jotham, his father;' 
etc. Accordingly, Home's introduction (Part II., Book 



of the Bible. in 

II., Chap. VII., Sec. II.), says: 'As sons frequently 
reigned with their fathers during the Hebrew monarchy, 
the reigns of the former are not unfrequently made, in 
some instances, to commence with their partnership in 
the throne, and in others from the commencement of 
their sole government after their father's decease ; con- 
sequently the time of the reign is sometimes noticed as 
it respects the father, sometimes as it respects the son, 
and sometimes as it includes both.' And farther on it is 
said : 'The application of the rule above stated will also 
remove the apparent contradiction between 2 Kings 24 : 
8 and 2 Chron. 36 : 9, Jehoiachin being 8 years old when 
he was associated in the government with his father, and 
18 years when he began to reign alone.' " 

"That," interrupted Fred, " perfectly accounts for 
the ten years of difference in Jehoiachin 's case, and in 
such a reasonable way that I should think no one would 
have any hesitation about accepting the solution. But 
is the other case, Ahaziah's difference of twenty years, 
as easily disposed of?" 

" Well," said the pastor, " that depends on how easy 
you are to satisfy ! A solution that has been offered is 
this : the 22-year date of 2 Kings 8 : 26, refers to the age 
at which Ahaziah began to reign, while the 42-year date 
of 2 Chron. 22 : 2, refers to the period of the reign in the 
history of the kingdom of his infamous mother, Athaliah, 
or of the House of Omri, to which dynasty he belonged, 
and which fell before the assaults of Jehu. Accordingly 
we have : Omri 6 years, Ahab 22 years, Ahaziah 2 years, 
Joram 12 years, which added together make 42 years. 
This is the solution of Ben Gershon, Lightfoot, and 
others. And it is a singular fact that quite a consider- 
able number of cases of apparent discrepancies in numbers 
will be removed by this peculiarly rabbinic method of 
computation." 



ii2 Alleged Discrepancies 

" That may do," said the young lawyer, ''provided 
(though I should want to think of that farther) the num- 
ber, 42 years, in 2 Chron. 22 : 2, referring to the House 
of Omri, is correct ; but what is the ground for that 
claim ?" 

"Really," said the pastor, " that is just what I would 
like to know myself. It seems to be an assumption pure 
and simple, for I see nothing in the terms of the text, 
certainly, to justify it ; and yet it is so plausible as to con- 
siderably commend it to credence. While not satisfied 
with this solution, because of lack of evidence, perhaps 
this difficulty would better be included among those which 
I had in mind when I suggested at the outset that I 
would have something to say on the general subject of 
numerical difficulties in the Old Testament." 

The pastor went on : "There are some sixteen numeri- 
cal variations in the two tables of enumeration of those 
who went back to Palestine from the Babylonian captiv- 
ity as given in Ezra, chap, ii., and Nehemiah, chap. vii. 
And then there are such variations as these : — 

2 Sam, 8:4, 1 Chron, 18:4, 

700 horsemen. 7,000 horsemen. 

1 Sam. 10:18, 1 Chron. 19:18, 

Syrians, 700 chariots. Syrians, 7,000 chariots. 

1 Kings 4 : 26, 2 Chron. 9 : 25, 

40,000 stalls. 4,000 stalls. 

1 Kings 6:2, 2 Chron. 3 : 4, 

30 cubits. 120 cubits. 

1 Kings 7 : 26, 2 Chron. 4 : 5, 
2,000 baths. 3,000 baths. 

2 Kings 8 : 26, 2 Chron. 22 : 2, 
Ahaziah, 22 years. Ahaziah, 42 years." 

" Now," continued the pastor, " how are these varia- 
tions to be accounted for ? The Hebrews had no numer- 
ical system of figures as we have, but they expressed 

eir numbers by letters. There are twenty-two letters 



OF THE BlBI/E. 113 

in the Hebrew alphabet. The first nine letters, from 
Aleph to Teth, express the units from 1 to 9. The next 
nine letters, from Yodhto Tsadhe, express the nine tens, 
from 10 to 90. The remaining four letters, from Koph 
to Tav, express the four hundreds, from 100 to 400. 
Five of these letters are written in a second form, 'final,' 
it is called, when they end a word. These five final 
letters are used for the five hundreds from 500 to 900. 
Besides, thousands are represented by the letters for 
units with two little dots over them. Thus, Aleph 
stands for 1, but put two dots over it, and it means 1,000. 
This is the system, and it is by combination of these 
letters, simple, final, and dotted, that all numbers are 
expressed. Some of the letters very closely resemble 
each other, and a copyist might mistake one for another, 
and so make a variant reading. Accordingly, the late 
Professor Green, of Princeton, in his Hebrew grammar, 
section 9, says : ' It has been ingeniously conjectured, 
and with as how of plausibility, that some of the dis- 
crepancies of numbers in the Old Testament may be 
accounted for by assuming the existence of such a sys- 
tem of symbols, in which errors might more easily arise 
than in fully written words.' Thus, in the case of 
Ahaziah, if we do not accept the rabbinical explanation 
given above, but allow that an error has crept in, it is 
not difficult to see that a transcriber may have easily mis- 
taken a Kaph, whose numerical power is 20, for a Mem, 
whose numerical power is 40. So Home says : ' Differ- 
ences in numbers not infrequently arise from false 
readings.' " 

George Argent and Miss Rysen hurriedly asked, as in 
one breath, "But what effect does this concession have 
upon the doctrine of inspiration?" 

"None whatever," replied the pastor. "Rev. Dr. 



ii4 



Alleged Discrepancies 



George F. Pentecost, in his published sermon, 'Inspired 
and Profitable,' p. 6, says : 'We may boldly and confi- 
dently say that the whole Book, as we have it, is inspired 
of God. In taking this broad ground, I, of course, do 
not wish to affirm that any errors which may have crept 
into the original text, in the course of transcription, or 
which can be manifestly traced to the hand of some 
interpolator, are inspired of God.' And the late Rev. 
Dr. James H. Brookes, the foremost champion in this 
country of the doctrine of verbal inspiration, in his 
magazine, 'The Truth,' vol. xxii., p. 65, says: 'It has 
never been claimed by any one that the copyists, trans- 
cribers, or translators of the Bible were verbally inspired, 
and hence there may possibly be errors of the pen, 
especially in numerals, which were represented by the 
letters of the Hebrew alphabet, in this case [2 Sam. 8 : 4, 
and 1 Chron. 18 : 4], a striking resemblance existing 
between the Hebrew letter Nun and Zayin standing for 
700 and 7000.' " 

Still the pastor went on : "Professor Briggs in his 
'Biblical Study,' p. 242, says: 'From the standpoint of 
biblical criticism, we are not prepared to admit errors in 
the Scriptures in the original autographs until they shall 
be proven. Very many of those alleged have already 
received sufficient or plausible explanations ; others are 
in dispute between truth seeking scholars, and satis- 
factory explanations may be given.' And Archdeacon 
Farrar says : 'The widest range of learning and the 
acutest ingenuity of criticism has never discovered one 
single demonstrable error of fact or doctrine in the 
Old or New Testament.' I suppose his reference must 
be to the pure text of Scripture. The reason back of 
these utterances must be that which controlled the Pres- 
byterian General Assembly, in Washington, in 1893, 



OF THE BlBLK. 115 

when it unanimously 'Resolved, That the Bible as we 
now have it, in its various translations and versions, 
when freed from all errors and mistakes of translators, 
copyists and printers, is the very word of God, and con- 
sequently wholly without error.' " 

11 The scrupulous, yes, almost superstitious, care exer- 
cised by the Jews in the making of manuscripts," said 
the pastor, "goes very far to guarantee the reliability of 
our text. The dress of the transcriber ; the color of 
the ink and the mode of preparing it ; the characters to 
be used in writing ; the spaces between the lines and the 
sections ; the ceremony to be observed in writing the 
name of God — all these, and many more, were minutely 
prescribed, and no one of them could be neglected with- 
out vitiating the work : a vitiated roll must be destroyed. 
We are told that they counted every verse, word and 
letter ; recorded how many times each separate letter 
of the alphabet occurs ; told how often the same word 
occurs at the beginning, middle, or end of a verse ; gave 
the middle verse, middle word, and middle letter of each 
book of the Pentateuch ; and they would not dare to 
alter in the text even an evident mistake, but had an 
intricate method of indicating it on the margin. I have 
somewhere read that Rabbi Ishmael said to a copyist : 
' My son, take great heed how thou doest thy work — for 
thy work is the work of Heaven — lest thou drop or add 
a letter of the manuscript, and so become a destroyer of 
the world.' With such scrupulous heedfulness, surely 
we may say : 'Thy testimonies are very sure' (Ps. 93:5). ' ' 
As the pastor paused, Miss Rysen with repressed 
emotion said : "I cannot tell you, our dear pastor, how 
thankful we are for the confirmation of faith in God's 
Word which you have given us. Difficulties have been 
cleared away, methods of study have been exhibited 



Ii6 



Alleged Discrepancies 



which we shall certainly use for our profit in the future ; 
and more yet, in all your ministry here, both public and 
private, you have inspired in us an earnest desire — I think 
I may say an insatiable longing, at least unsatisfied except 
as the longing is fulfilled — to translate the truths of the 
Bible into better and yet better living." 

To prevent an emotional breakdown the pastor has- 
tened to say as he arose: "As I look back over 
the happy student-evenings we have spent together, 
I can see that my own faith has been strength- 
ened, too. We have gone over the very chiefest of the 
alleged discrepancies, and I think we have fairly and 
squarely solved them all. We have little patience with 
those whose attitude is that of the old Latin writer — 
Aut inve?iiam discrepantiam, aut faciam : ' I will find a 
discrepancy, or I will make one.' I think Professor 
Terry, in his Biblical Hermeneutics, speaks truly when 
he says : ' Not a few of the alleged contradictions of 
Scripture exist only in the imagination of skeptical 
writers, and are to be attributed to the perverse mis- 
understanding of captious critics ' (p. 514). And Pro- 
fessor Willis J Beecher, in his paper on 'Historicity,' 
published in The Auburn Seminary Review, October, 
1902, p. 159, says : 'In recent books some thousands of 
instances are cited of alleged contradictions in the Scrip- 
tures. . . . But if you will take up these cases one 
by one, according to them the same fair treatment that 
you would demand for statements made by yourself, you 
will decide that in nine-tenths of them there is clearly 
no contradiction, and that only a small proportion of 
the remaining tenth presents any real difficulty.' Bar- 
ring the penslips of copyists, I am firm in the conviction 
that there is not a single apparent discrepancy in all the 
Bible that cannot be reasonably and satisfactorily 



OF THE BIBI.K. 117 

explained. 'Forever, O Lord, thy Word is settled in 
heaven,' (Ps. 119 : 89), yes, and on earth, too. 

1 Almighty Lord, the sun shall fail, 
The moon forget her nightly tale, 
And deepest silence hush on high, 
The radiant chorus of the sky ; 
But fixed for everlasting years, 
Unmoved, amid the wreck of spheres, 
Thy Word shall shine in cloudless day, 
When heaven and earth have passed away.' " 

As the pastor impressively, and with a touch of awe- 
someness, repeated these lines of Sir Robert Grant, the 
little company reverently arose, standing in the arc of a 
circle before him, and, as at the close of the first meet- 
ing, so now, his voice glided into prayer. In ten- 
der tones he prayed for these, his beloved young peo- 
ple, that they might continue to grow in the knowlege 
of the Word and in all graces of the Christian life ; and 
he commended them, as did Paul the Ephesian elders 
when parting with them at Miletus (Acts 20 : 32), to 
God, and to the Word of His grace, which is able to 
build them up, and to give them an inheritance among 
all them which are sanctified. 

And so these meetings for the study of Alleged Discrep- 
ancies of the Bible came to an end. 



n8 



Index. 



Index of Scripture Texts, 



OLD TESTAMENT. 



Genesis. 

Chap. Page. 
i:3-5 62 

i : 14-19 62 

1 =3i 58 

2 : 2 26 

6 :6, 7 37 

6 : 19 40 

7 :2 40 

12 :6, 7 76 

15 :i3 71, 73 

17 =8 74 

19 : 19 86 

21 =9 73 

22 : 1 16 

24 : 50 86 

29:3,1 60 

31 -52 86 

32 =30 45 

33:i8, 19 74 

33:20 75 

36 : 24 70 

41 :4 86 

4i :52 74 

44 : 29 86 

46 : 26 18, 19 

46 127 18, 19 

47:9 7i 

Exodus. 

3:5 45 

4 : 21 64 

4 : 22 11 

7:3 65 



Chap. Page. 

7 :i3 65 

7:i4 65 

12 : 40 71, 72 

20 : 4 49 

2i : 6 106 

23:20 47 

24 : 10 46 

24:11 45 

25:8 33 

25 : 18, 20 49 

26 : 14 69 

32 : 14 37 

32:22 86 

33 : 11 '....46 

33:20 45 

Leviticus. 

11 : 6 67 

16 : 15 80 

16 : 17 80 

16 : 34 80 

24 :i6 51 

27 : 6 73 

Numbers. 

3:22,28, 34, 39.. 99 

11 :i5 86 

11 :3i 42 

15: 9 15 

23 :i9 37 

35 :3Q 83 

Deuteronomy. 

4: 15 45 



Chap. 
4:24 
6 : 22. 

14: 7-. 
17 : 6 . 



Page. 
...47 
...87 
...70 
•••83 



19 :i5 83 

24 : 10 101 

32 :4 86 

Joshua. 

10:42 52 

11 :i8 52 

24 :32 74 

Judges. 

2:18 37 

11 : 27 87 

13 :22 46 

15:3 86 

1 Samuel. 

1 : 22-25 73 

9:12 53 

10 : 18 112 

10 : 19 86 

15 : 11 37 

15 : 35 35 

16:2-5 53 

16 : 10, 11 101 

17 : 12 101 

I7:i5 36 

18:17, 19.... 34, 35 

19: 11 31 

25 : 44 34 

3i =3 31 

3i:4,5 31 



2 Samuel. 

Chap. Page. 

1 : IO 31 

3^5 31 

6:14, 20 34 

6 : 23 33 

8:4.. 112 

21 : 1-6 35 

21 : 8 33 

21 : 12 31 

24 19 21 

24:24 2,3, 6 

1 Kings. 

4 : 26 112 

6:2 112 

7 : 26 112 

8: 27 33 

15: 14 52 

18:31 53 

22 : 43 53 

2 Kings. 

8 :26 109, in 

13 : 10 110 

15 :i no 

24 : 8 109 

1 Chronicles. 

2 : 15 101 

18 14 112 

19 :8 112 

21 15 21 

21 :25.. 3,6 

27 : 18 101 

Matthew. 

Chap. Page. 
i:i II 

2 : 15 11 

4:1 16 

5 :39 97 



Index. 
2 Chronicles. 

Chap. Page. 

3 '4 112 

4:5 112 

9:25 112 

14:2-5 52, 53 

15: 17 53 

17:6 53 

20:33 53 

22 : 2 109, in 

3 6 "• 9 109 

Psalms. 

5:4 86 

34: 19 87 

3 6 : 9 90 

40 : 6 103 

68 : 18 103 

9°: 13 37 

93:5 115 

105 :9-i2 74 

106 : 45 37 

110:4 37 

119 :89 117 

141 : 5 87 

Proverbs. 

1 : 27 60 

1:28 59 

8: 17 ....59 

Isaiah. 

2 : 1-4 9 

6:1 46 



NEW TESTAMENT 

Chap. Page. 

9 :27 30 

10:9, 10 53.54 

10: 17 95 

10: 19 105 

10:34 58 



119 

Chap. Page. 

29 :i4 ..103 

45:i-4 88 

45:7 86 

64: 4 ...103 

Jeremiah, 

4: 28 .. 3y 

18 : 1-4. 9 

18: 11 86 

19 :i-3 10 

29 : 1 1 86 

Lamentations. 

3:38 86 

3:44 .--47 

Ezekiel. 

20 : 25 86 

24:14 37 

Hosea. 

11 : 1 11 

Amos. 

3:6 86 

Micah. 

4:i-5 9 

Zechariah. 
7:12 9 

9:9 9 

11 : 12, 13 8 

Chap. Page. 
10:37 6l 

19 :3~9 97 

20 : 12 25 

20:23 58 

20 : 29-34.... 27, 28 



120 



Index. 



Chap. Page. 

23:9 59 

26 :7i 24 

27:5. ••• 13 

27 -9> 10 7 

27 ^37 95 

28 19 78 

28:16 13 

Mark. 

6:8,9 53,54 

10 : 2-12 97 

10 146-52. . . .27, 28 
13 :i i io 5 

13 :32 58 

14 : 69 24 

15 :25 .....76 

15:26 95 

16 :i4 13 

Luke. 

2 :i4 58 

9 :3--- 54,55 

11 :46 25 

12: 11, 12 105 

12 : 41-48 36 

14 : 26 60 

15:18 59 

16 :i8 97 

18:35-43- ••■27, 28 

21 : 14, 15 105 

22 :42 107 

22 :44 81 

22 :55 26 

22 : 58 24 

23:38 95 

24:33 13 

24 : 44 81 

John. 

1 : 14 48 

1 :i8 45, 46 

4 :24 46 



Chap. Page. 

4 :34 107 

5 :8-i6 83 

5:17 26 

5:24 91 

5 :3o ...107 

5:31 83 

5:37 45 

6:6 16 

6 :38 107 

6:39, 40,44,54.91 

6 : 40 91 

6:47 9 1 

8:3-11 84 

8:7-9 84 

8:14 83 

8 :28 79 

12 : 28-30 43 

14 :26 105 

14 :28 57 

15 :20 97 

16 :i3 97, 105 

18: 25 24 

18 : 31 50 

19 -7 50 

19: 14 76 

19 : 19 95 

20 : 17 78 

20 : 24 13 

20 : 27 77 

21 : 1 14 

Acts. 

1 :i6 88 

1 : 25 46 

2 : 23 89 

7 : 14 18, 19 

7 : 16 74 

7U8 33 

8:33 58 

9:7 42 

12:8 54 



Chap. Page. 

16 : 7 16 

20 : 22 98 

20 : 32 117 

21 : 4 98 

22 : 9 42 

23: 11 99 

24 : 6 16 

Romans. 

1 :8, 9 46 

1 :25 59 

1 : 28 92 

8:22 58 

8 : 30 91 

1 Corinthians. 

1 :i9 103 

2:9 103 

3 : 15 94 

7 :io 97 

7:12 ...97 

8:9 92 

9 : 24 93 

9:25 93 

9 :2 7 9 1 

10 : 8 15 

12 : 22 97 

14 : 2 44 

14:33 86 

15 : 5 14 

15 :24 57 

2 Corinthians. 

5:1-8 91 

13 :5, 6, 7 92 

Galatians. 

2:6 97 

2 : 16 50 

3 : 17 7i 

6:2 25 

6: 5 25 



Ephesians. 

Chap. Page. 

4:8 103 

5 : 25, 28, 29 60 

Philippians. 

2:6 57 

2:7 57, 107 

2:8 58 

1 Thessalonians. 

3:7 97 

2 Thessalonians. 

1 -9 46 

1 Timothy. 

1 :i7 45, 46 

3:6 48 

6:16 45, 46 



Index. 
2 Timothy. 

Chap. Page. 

3 :8 92 

3 : 16 105 

4:1 82 

4 : 6-8 91 

Titus. 

I :i6 92 

Hebrews. 

6 : 8 92 

7:21 37 

8:3 107 

9:7 80 

9 : 11, 12 .... .80 

9 : 24 80 

10 : 5 103 

II : 6 74 

12:9 59 

12 : 29 .47 



121 
James. 

Chap. Page. 

1 ■ : 13 16 

2 :24 50 

3:18 59 

1 Peter. 

3:20 41 

2 Peter. 

2:21 105 

1 John. 

1:1 48 

2:2 46, 80 

Jude. 

vs. 14, 15 9 

Revelation. 

22 ; 4 ■'.... 46 



122 Index. 



Index of Subjects. 

Page. 
Abraham's ' ' seed ' ' afflicted 73 

Agency, Man's free, and God's sovereignty 89 

Ahaziah, Age of 109 

Amalekite killing Saul 31 

Angel of the Lord 47 

Animals going into the Ark 40 

Area of Temple site 4 

Ark, Capacity of the . , 41 

Araunah's threshing-floor purchased 3, 6 

Aurora Borealis 63 

Barnes quoted 56 

Bearing one's own, and another's, burden 25 

Beecher, Prof, on alleged Bible contradictions 116 

Blind men at Jericho healed 28 

Blood of Christ sprinkled on Mercy-seat — when ? 81 

Briggs, Prof, quoted 7, 1 14 

Castaway, A 91 

Census of David's family 102 

Challenge of Peter by a maid 24 

Childlessness of Michal, David's wife 34 

Christ's death for all men 46 

, equality with God 57 

witness of Himself 83 

Chronology of Israel's sojourn in Egypt 72 

Conquest of Palestine by Joshua . 52 

Consorts in government no 

Converts — none in India 39 

Cowper's " Epitaph on a Hare" 68 

Creation, Character of 58 

Cross, Superscriptions upon 95 

Crucifixion , Hour of 76 

Cud-chewing animals 68 

David the eighth, yet seventh, son of Jesse 101 



Index. 123 

Page. 

Descendants of Jacob .•■ 20 

Differential calculus and morals 38 

Disciples— " The Eleven.". 13 

Dutchman on the earth's revolution 89 

Early seeking of God 59 

Egypt — " My Son " called out of 10 

sojourn of Israel in 71 

Equality of Christ with God 57 

Evil— Is God the author of ? 86 

Family affections differentiated 60 

of Jacob in Egypt 18. 20 

Farrar quoted 27, 29, 54, 76, 114 

Father, No man to be called 59 

Fisher, Prof, quoted 23 

Foot-wear commanded, yet forbidden, to the disciples 54 

Fore-knowledge of God, and human freedom 89 

Garbett's rule quoted 96 

Gibson, Dr. J. Munro quoted . 10, 66 

God — author of evil 86 

ceasing from work 26 

dwelling, yet not dwelling, in temples 33 

invisible, yet visible 45 

repenting, yet not repenting 37 

sovereign, and man free 88 

tempting, yet not tempting 16 

Hamilton, Sir William quoted , 86 

Hardening of Pharaoh's heart 64 

Hare chewing the cud .... 67 

High places taken, yet not taken, away 52 

High-priest's office 80 

Holy Spirit author of changes in quotations 108 

Images forbidden, yet commanded 49 

Incarnation, The 48 

Infidel catalog of Bible Discrepancies 40 

Inerrancy of the Bible — Prof. Briggs on 1 14 

Farrar on 114 

Inspiration — Dr. J. H. Brookes on 114 

Dr. Geo. F. Pentecost on 114 



124 Index. 

Page. 

Inspiration — Presbyterian Gen. Assembly on ... 35 

did St. Paul disclaim it ? 98 

Israel's sojourn in Egypt 7 1 

Jacob's family in Egypt 18, 20 

Jehoiachin, Age of 109 

Journey equipment of the disciples 53 

Judas' betrayal of Jesus 88 

Justification by works, yet by faith only 50 

Kenosis, The 57 

Kingship of Christ 82 

Lee's method of solving difficulties 28 

Legality of Jesus' death 5° 

Levitical families, Numbers in 99 

Light before the sun 62 

Lightf oot quoted 9 

Love vs. hatred 60 

Marriage, Paul's deliverance on 97 

Mary forbidden to touch Christ 78 

Matthew's quotation from Jeremiah 8 

Michal's childlessness 34 

Military, Numbers of, in Judah and Israel 21 

Mules vs. hot-springs 70 

Murphy, Prof, quoted 47. 66 

Natural history, Ancient knowledge of 7° 

Notation, Hebrew system of 113 

Numbers, Variations of, in Scripture 112 

Oman's p]ace bought by David 3. 6 

Osgood, Prof. Howard 4 1 * 10 4 

Parker, Dr. Joseph quoted 37 

Pastors defenders of the faith 25 

Paul's prohibited journey to Jerusalem 9 8 

Peace, or war, an object of Christ's mission ? 58 

Personal equation of a writer 53 

Peter challenged by a maid 24 

Pharaoh hardening his heart 64 

Plague, The number that died during the 15 

Potter's field — quotation concerning 7 



Indkx. 125 

Page. 
Presbyterian General Assembly's deliverances 8, 35, 115 

Priestly office of Christ 79 

Prophetic office of Christ 79 

Psychology of heart-hardening 67 

Quails in the wilderness 42 

• Quotations from the Old Testament in the New 103 

Repentance of God and of man 37 

Roman tribes 14 

Ruminant animals 68 

Saul — death of 31 

not knowing David 36 

Security of believers vs. a castaway 91' 

Seeing God 44 

Seeking God early 59 

Senator, A, on Saul's death 32 

Septuagint — what it is ... 105 

quotations from j 05 

Sepulchre purchased by Abraham or Jacob ? 74 

Servant of Jehovah 11 

Smith, Prof. H. P. quoted 3, 21, 36 

Sovereignty of God and man's free agency 88 

Strong's " Ethical Monism." 85 

Temptation, Meaning of 16 

Terry, Prof, on alleged Bible contradictions 116 

The Theophanies 47 

Tigers — none in India 34 

Touching Jesus forbidden 78 

Trench on healing the blind men at Jericho 29 

Unchangeableness of God 38 

Van Oosterzee quoted 22 

Variations in Scripture numbers 112 

Voice heard, yet not heard, on road to Damascus 42 

Whitby quoted . 9 

Young people go to the Dominie's . 1 

farewell to 117 



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